Ninth N/Assembly and ‘Jumbo pay’ controversy

Against the backdrop of a deluge of controversies associated with the National Assembly, lies the need for every controversy and public misgiving associated with the institution to enjoy as much attention as can be availed it. That is to ensure that no such unattended misreading of any situation by the public, is allowed to attract unintended outcomes that may not be helpful to the institution’s image and public interest. It is in this context that the recently   rekindled public interest in the remuneration of federal legislators – namely the Senators and Members of the House of Representatives enjoys locus. The Senate President Ahmed Lawan was addressing a delegation of the Senators Forum and debunked the idea of ‘Jumbo pay’ for legislators, citing that his monthly salary was N750,000.00. However, Lawan was quickly countered by the Chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption (PCAC) Professor Itsay Sagay, who accused the Senate President of lying, as the monthly remuneration of a Senator was N15 million. According to Sagay the emoluments of a Senator should be rated according to the take home amount rather than the salary, hence the figure of N15 million per month.

However, considering the circumstances behind both figures – especially in the context of the law, the truth lies more with Lawan than Sagay, whose take on the issue seems to pander more towards accentuating a misreading of the matter, by sections of the Nigerian public.  As facts bear, the comprehensive monthly emolument of a Senator or Member of the House of Representatives is about N1.3 million and N1.2 million respectively. That is the legitimate, approved personal take-home for the services they render to the country as legislators and not N15 million as presented by the learned Sagay – a most distinguished professor of Constitutional law.  At least the complement of financial records available to the public by the National Assembly, vindicates Lawan in this respect. It is even for that reason that this column is electing to serve as a friend of the legislature in this matter.

Incidentally, the bone of contention – as far as the Nigerian tax payers and the general public are concerned with, remains the justification for whatever additional amount that is credited to the legislators, beyond the approved salary. Unfortunately, the Ninth National Assembly seems to have inherited the challenge of debunking this unwholesome controversy along with other stake holders in the country’s democracy, as past assemblies may not have resolved the issue conclusively, in spite of several spirited efforts in that regard.

As the statutory crucible for coalescing national consensus on critical initiatives for developing the country, the forte of the National Assembly lies in the credibility of its membership and processes. This is the premise on which it remains duty bound to walk its talk, and establish its credibility in every matter which the public identifies it with. And hardly in any area does the challenge of establishing credibility supersede that of money matters. It is therefore for good measure that the Senate President has clarified this thorny issue of legislators’ emoluments early in his tenure, as it is one of the controversies that qualify for prime attention and resolution by the National Assembly.

It is easily recalled that the controversy over the emoluments of legislators had been trending for as long as the current democratic dispensation commenced in 1999, with the Fourth National Assembly. President Olusegun Obasanjo was in his first of two terms and got himself enmeshed in a battle of wits with that Fourth (1999 – 2003) as well as the Fifth (2003 – 2007) sessions of the National Assembly over several areas of democratic governance, including the fiscal life of the country. The resultant trench war between him and the federal legislators, facilitated the spread of damaging perspectives of sleaze against the latter. And by the time Obasanjo left office at the end of his second term in 2007 as President, he was transformed into an unrepentant chief apostle of the ‘bring down the legislators’ campaign. At least, it is not difficult to remember his scary declaration that it cost the country as much as a redoubtable sum of N230 million annually to maintain a Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

As if acting on cue, several prominent voices toed Obasanjo’s argument without as much as indulging in the most rudimentary computation and verification of his submission, which for all practical purposes qualified as gravely unrealistic. Rather, some even went as far as ascribing to him the status of an oracle with infallible powers of prescience. The submission by Sagay which suffers a credibility deficit due largely to its incongruence with material facts on ground, betrays a fixation by some of the country’s elite, with the discredited bogey of a ‘Jumbo salary’ package for the legislators in the National Assembly. It simply does not exist.

However, courtesy of the sensitive nature of the controversy, the wide interest it conjures across the country, and the long history of its incidence in the public space, it will take more than a mere one -time denial by even the Senate President, Lawan to vitiate. Because this is a controversy which like many others that gnaw at the integrity of the establishment, will need a properly articulated public education regime to resolve.

Seen in perspective, in spite of the commendable achievements of the various sessions of the National Assembly historically, information management of its processes is yet to qualify as one of its critical strengths. For instance, the controversy over the matter under consideration sustained over time due to the fundamental consideration of the legislators as individuals and not representatives of statutory. As individuals they are only entitled to their personal emoluments. However, as representatives of constituencies the Constitution grants them the liberty of standing in for their constituents in respect of which they collect the designated operational funds.

In the circumstances, rather than subjecting them to sundry and unjustified vilification, the advocacy should be directed to auditing how they spend such funds collected on behalf of their respective constituencies. This is where the Office of the Auditor General of the Federation (AuGF), needs to get involved in ascertaining whether the allowances paid to legislators outside their designated salaries, serve the purposes such were designate for, or end up on frivolities as mere pocket money.