AT a time when Nigerians wallow in biting hunger and excruciating hardship, which recently snowballed into the deadly #EndBadGovernance and hunger protests, revelations have again emerged that the federal lawmakers revel in provocative opulence. For repeatedly urging Nigerians to endure while they live in contemptible luxury, the National Assembly members are hypocrites. The lawmakers are guilty as charged.
Ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo recently brought the lawmakers’ excessive remuneration back into national consciousness during a visit of a group of lawmakers campaigning for a single presidential term of six years. He castigated the lawmakers for brazenly fixing their salaries and allowances and paying themselves obscenely in the flagrant usurpation of the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission powers. Obasanjo berated the executive for giving the federal legislators “things they are not entitled to,” including the annual constituency allowance and SUVs.
A senator, Abdul Ningi, was recently suspended after alleging that the executive directly transferred between N200 million and N500 million to ranking senators for constituency projects. Also, the impact of federal lawmakers’ oversight functions has not been felt since 1999, mostly because they are bedevilled by sleaze. Despite empty denials, Sumaila Kawu, representing Kano South in the Senate, has unwittingly confirmed the daylight robbery by the NASS under Godswill Akpabio and Tajudeen Abbas.
Kawu.