I know that the Senate President, Bukola Saraki as the chairman of the National Assembly must be miffed reading the newspapers and the social media buzz about the amount that he and his colleagues will share as wardrobe allowance.
On Monday, it was a major headline in most of the newspapers that the National Assembly will share N8.64 billion as wardrobe allowance, but a new figure from the Chairman of Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission, Engr. Elias Mbam, may help douse the tension.
Yes, we now have a different figure of N506, 600 per legislator per annum that is 25 percent of the basic salary of the lawmakers. But why did it take the RMAFC chairman more days to speak after the issue had gained enough mileage on social media and in the national dailies? Also why did he have to visit Senator Saraki before giving the nation this new information? Certainly, there is something wrong with the system both at the National Assembly and at RMAFC.
Mbam has condemned the media reports he claimed exaggerated the wardrobe allowances of the lawmakers, but at a time we are asking our leaders to make judicious use of oil revenue for infrastructure such as power, good sea ports, roads and others to crystallize our modern economy and we suddenly hear that our politicians, mostly of the All Progressives Congress (APC) at the National Assembly have concluded plans to share $43 million of our oil revenue as wardrobe allowance, do you think such information will be treated as inside stories. It will naturally be on the cover pages.
Shamefully, more than 20 states of the federation owe an average of five months salaries with some owing their workers as much as seven months. From those states are elected parliamentarians who now want to share this largesse without conscience. Their conscience must be really dead.
Still among these parliamentarians we listen to whispers of scandalous deals and how bourgeois privileges have totally closed their eyes to the plight of the common man.
I know it sounds silly, but when the news first broke, until it was refuted I have been asking myself why did we elect people without clothes, shoes and other wardrobe items as our legislators. Have we not opened the door of our treasury to army of robbers once again?
The stupid side of this story is that they will get all the money, do nothing and on the eve of their valedictory service in 2019, they will pass 46 bills in less than 10 minutes. What a shame!
And because we have known that the money Nigeria channels into funding its legislature has continued to widen the gulf in Nigeria’s poverty index, it is natural that people will react to any figure that will put us deeper into poverty line.
In 2012, The Economist’s cost analysis indicated that Nigeria runs the most expensive parliament in the world and just when you expect that this new National Assembly populated by ‘change leaders’ will reverse the trend, we are beginning to see what tomorrow will bring from today.
At best, it’s offensive that parliamentarians who have not given anything to the country since they were inaugurated will be getting so much money.
Honestly, I don’t know how many of them have donated a dime to the reconstruction of towns and villages destroyed by the Boko Haram militants or those among them who have taken up the responsibility of adopting the children orphaned by Boko Haram to prove to us that they are committed to rebuilding our nation, yet they want to use our taxpayer’s money for their own selfish interest.
It is like this, if given the chance, an elected politician will like to have seven bedrooms and seven bathrooms, each for everyday of the week. They have turned themselves to Hollywood stars who live in Beverly Hills wearing one pant per day and have it thrown away. They have forgotten the promise of change they made to us during campaigns.
They want to sleep in luxury apartments and lie down on a bed that can ride on a cushion of air to take them around the room, when there is another citizen somewhere struggling to get kerosene out of the filling stations at exorbitant charges, because of bad leadership that has been the bane of country’s retrogression.
Yes, I can understand that a number of the legislators had been in the rain for too long--just like most Nigerians had. They have now found an opportunity to dry their body. But must you barricade yourselves in and say to hell with the rest of us who are still in the rain? No! I know the Nigerian spirit. It is an unbowed spirit. Nigerians will demand nothing, but true change in Abuja.
What more, it is ironical that the United States Government has just given us $5 million to fight Boko Haram as the government continues to complain that there is no money in its coffer, so to hear of an attempt by the parliamentarians to brazenly take out $43 million in one fell swoop will make Nigerians react.
To say the truth, any elected Senator and House of Representatives member on the platform of the All Progressives Congress who accept to collect any unjustified allowances during the lifecycle of this administration has deceived Nigerians during the electioneering with a promise of change. You’ll say I didn’t say anything about the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) parliamentarians, they didn’t promise us change. Did they?
I have dedicated a blog (bokoharamwatch.wordpress.com) to monitor the killings of Boko Haram in our country since the inauguration of this new administration and so far no less than 400 people have been killed within 20 days of this administration based on reports monitored so far. Does that not bother us? When it is calculated per year Nigeria may lose between 7, 500 to 8000 of its citizens to insurgency, if quick step is not taken to address the problem. There are other reasons why people die in the country that are totally preventable, if good policies are there and implemented. But the lawmakers will not be moved by those issues.
And this, I heard the Imo State Governor, Rochas Okorocha asking for a bailout from the federal government on behalf of the forum of APC governors that he leads, whereas some of them as governors are richer than their states. At least Okorocha was beating his chest that he had the capacity to move money in trailers during the electioneering. He was telling anyone who cares that the synonym for Rochas is money. So what bailout is he asking for?
Adeola Akinremi
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