Contrary to what the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) said, a lawmaker representing Kano South Senatorial District Sumaila Kawu has revealed that each senator in Nigeria is paid at least N21,000,000 as a monthly salary.
RMAFC, the government’s agency that determines the remuneration appropriate for political officeholders, revealed on Tuesday that each senator in Nigeria receives a total of N1.06m in salary and allowances per month.
Nigeria’s former President Olusegun Obasanjo has berated federal lawmakers in a video that has now gone viral, saying it was wrong for them to fix their salary, when six members of the House of Representatives led by Ikenga Ugo Chinyere who visited him,
In response, the RMAFC Chairman, Mohammed Shehu, clarified that each lawmaker earns N12.72 million annually, and the Federal Government makes a total expenditure of N1.4bn annually for the 109 senators.
“The commission also wishes to use this opportunity to state that any allegation regarding other allowance(s) being enjoyed by any political, public office holder outside those provided in the Remuneration (Amendment) Act, 2008 should be explained by the person who made the allegation,” and directed the general public to RMAC’s website rmafc.gov.ng to details of remunerations of public officeholders.
But the Kano senator countered the RMAFC, saying he earns over N21m monthly as a total take-home package in an interview with British Broadcasting Hausa Service.
He disclosed that although his monthly salary is about N1million, his total take-home was twenty-one million naira at the end of every month, “if there are cuts, it comes back to about six hundred thousand naira and a little something as salary,” he said.
Monthly salary shrouded in secrecy for years
The monthly salary of federal lawmakers has been shrouded in secrecy since Nigeria returned to democracy in 1999. But whenever anyone released figures of the lawmakers’ salary, they would refute it without disclosing their real salary.
A few years ago, a former Kaduna Central Senator, Shehu Sani, publicly disclosed that each Nigerian Senator collects N750,000 as basic salary as prescribed by RMAFC while they get N13.5m as a monthly running cost. It not clear whether the running cost is recognised by agency in charge of the remuneration of public officerholders.
Reacting to the figure quoted by the RMAFC, the former Kaduna senator tweeted on his X handle, “The RMFAC specifically quoted the figure of the salary earned by the lawmakers and then danced around the figures for the total sum of the monthly running cost per legislator. Anyway,I can understand their fears.”
Similarly, Senator Sani stated that he had been vindicated by the revelation of Senator Kawu that each senator takes more than 20 folds of the monthly salary prescribed by the remuneration agency.
“Yesterday ,the RMFAC refuted my statement, but I’m now vindicated by Senator Kawu Sumaila who confirmed that the monthly alert is N21 Million and not N1million. RMFAC make una mind yourself,” the human rights activist tweeted.
Reacting to the RMAFC figure, Nigerians are asking: Why would anyone spend billions to rig elections only to be paid 1 million a month?