Nigeria’s lawmakers demand bigger paychecks while 133 million Nigerians starve, graduates roam jobless, and hospitals die—official looting dressed as entitlement. In plain terms, while families count coins for food, Nigeria’s lawmakers appear to be counting how much more the suffering nation can squeeze into their wallets.
I have watched this Nigerian movie too many times. The
country is sweating under the hot sun, the people are counting coins at the
market, parents are cutting meals, graduates are roaming streets with folders
like funeral programs, and federal lawmakers are sitting inside air-conditioned
chambers asking, directly or indirectly, whether their feeding bottle should be
upgraded.
More money?
For what exactly?
Nigeria’s federal legislators are already drinking from a
very fat cup while millions of citizens are staring into empty pots. A Nigerian
senator receives about N21 million, roughly $15,839, every month. A member of
the House of Representatives reportedly receives about N19 million, about
$14,331, monthly. Yes, the official figures published by the Revenue
Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission(RMAFC) are much lower. The RMAFC
said in 2024 that a senator’s monthly salary and listed allowances came to
N1,063,860.
That is where the public argument becomes slippery.
The official document is one thing. The full political
feeding arrangement is another thing entirely.
A Nigerian lawmaker does not live by basic salary alone.
There are allowances. There are vehicles. There are official residences. There
are aides. There is security. There are travel claims. There are duty-tour
payments. There are furniture packages. There are medical benefits. There are
loans. There are constituency projects. There are committees. There are the
many dark corners where public money enters a government building and comes out
looking like “welfare.”
In Abuja, the country’s federal capital territory where
these lawmakers reside, a salary is often the small goat tied outside the
compound. The real cow is inside.
The National Assembly does not need a pay raise. It needs
a hard public audit, a bright light, and perhaps a mirror large enough for
every senator and representative to see the country behind them.
Nigeria has 109 senators and 360 members of the House of
Representatives. That is 469 elected federal lawmakers. They are not poor
villagers trekking 10 miles to fetch water. They are among the most protected
people in the republic. They have escorts. They have aides. They have access.
They have power. They can summon ministers, delay budgets, approve loans,
investigate agencies, and turn a simple letterhead into a weapon.
Yet too often, the same people who claim to represent
suffering Nigerians behave like they were elected to represent the Nigerian
treasury against Nigerians.
“Honorable, the people are hungry.”
“Bring the file.”
“The hospitals have no drugs.”
“Set up a committee.”
“The roads are killing people.”
“Let us conduct oversight.”
“The naira is bleeding.”
“Where is the SUV?”
That is the national conversation in one ugly little
room.
The vehicle scandal captured the madness perfectly. In
2023, lawmakers faced public anger over plans connected to luxury and
bulletproof vehicles. Reports put the National Assembly’s vehicle budget at
N57.6 billion. The figure landed like a brick through a widow’s window. At the
same time, the official remuneration package included a car loan of about N8.1
million for each senator, repayable before the end of tenure.
But apparently, that was not enough.
A man with a car loan wants another vehicle paid for by a
country where many citizens cannot afford transport to work. A political class
that lectures Nigerians about sacrifice wants armored comfort while ordinary
people are squeezed into buses, tricycles, motorcycles, and danger.
That is not leadership. That is premium-seat patriotism.
The lawmakers and their defenders may say security is
serious. They are correct. Nigeria has kidnappings, banditry, terrorism,
violent crime, and deep political instability. But that is precisely the point.
A country with frightened farmers, understaffed police stations, weak rural
clinics, and dangerous highways should be careful about pouring billions into
political comfort.
A bulletproof SUV does not fix a broken health center.
A polished convoy does not employ a hungry graduate.
A tinted window does not teach a child in a classroom
with no roof.
And a senator cannot claim to be fighting poverty while
driving past it in a vehicle that costs more than many communities will see in
public investment.
The constituency allowance story is even more disturbing.
Nigeria’s Senators and House members have reportedly received up to N2 billion
and N1 billion annually, respectively, in constituency-related allocations and
projects. Let us call this what it often becomes: a political cash river with
too many unguarded bridges.
The idea behind constituency projects sounds clean. A
lawmaker should help draw federal attention to the needs of the people who
elected him or her. Fine. Nobody is against boreholes, clinics, classroom
blocks, roads, skills programs, or rural electrification.
But in Nigeria, good ideas often enter the political
kitchen and leave wearing a fake moustache.
A borehole may exist only in a press release. A skills
program may produce 20 sewing machines for cameras and 200 campaign posters for
the next election. A health-center renovation may be announced 3 times, funded
2 times, and completed never. A constituency project can become a private ATM
with a ribbon-cutting ceremony attached.
That is why any talk of raising legislative pay is not
merely insulting. It is dangerous. It tells public officials that opacity pays.
It tells citizens that hardship has become normal. It tells young Nigerians
that the fastest road to comfort is not invention, teaching, medicine, farming,
engineering, or honest business. It is politics.
Get elected. Enter Abuja. Find the allowance menu. Eat.
The country has seen this pattern before. Nigeria’s
political economy has long rewarded public office more generously than
productive work. The result is a desperate scramble for office, not because
everyone loves public service, but because public office can function like a
private oil well with a national flag on top.
Meanwhile, the World Bank reported that about 133 million
Nigerians were living in multidimensional poverty in 2022. That figure was not
a joke. It represented real people struggling with food, schooling, sanitation,
housing, health care, electricity, and survival. In 2024, the World Bank also
warned that economic hardship and inflation were pushing more Nigerians into
poverty.
So let me understand the moral logic. A mother cannot
afford food. A worker’s wages disappear before the month ends. A student
studies by candlelight. A small business owner pays for fuel, generator
repairs, taxes, transport, and insecurity. Then a federal legislator looks at
this burning house and says, “My compensation package may need improvement.”
Improve what?
The leather seats?
The convoy fuel?
The number of aides carrying phones behind him?
The Nigerian people are not fools. They can count. They
may not know every line item hidden inside a budget document, but they know
when their representatives are living like kings in a country that keeps asking
peasants to be patient.
Patience has become the national tax.
Citizens pay it at petrol stations. They pay it in
hospitals. They pay it in overcrowded classrooms. They pay it when their
children graduate into unemployment. They pay it when a public official says,
“We feel your pain,” then climbs into a government SUV and disappears behind
sirens.
The performance question makes the whole thing worse.
Reports covering legislative activity in 2025 and 2026 found that 4 senators
and 48 House members recorded no debates, bills, or petitions during the period
reviewed. No debate. No bill. No petition.
Nothing.
A lawmaker with no visible legislative contribution is
not a representative. He is expensive furniture.
Imagine any Nigerian worker trying that trick.
A teacher teaches nothing for a year. A doctor sees no
patient. A driver makes no trip. A mechanic repairs no car. A banker processes
no transaction. A journalist writes no story.
Would they receive more money?
Nigeria’s lawmakers should not be discussing salary
increases until every kobo connected to their office is publicly disclosed,
independently audited, and tied to measurable work. Let Nigerians see the full
package: salary, allowances, vehicles, aides, travel, security, constituency
allocations, project contractors, project locations, project costs, and project
results.
No smoke. No Abuja grammar. No patriotic perfume sprayed
over public waste.
If a Nigerian senator wants more pay, let him first show
the people the hospital he repaired, the law he passed, the corrupt contract he
exposed, the jobs his oversight protected, and the public money he stopped from
disappearing. Let him show up in the chamber and speak for the people before
speaking for his pocket.
Until then, the answer is simple.
Nigeria does not need better-paid lawmakers.
Nigeria needs lawmakers who stop milking the cow long
enough to notice that the calf is dying.
Enjoyed this brief
analysis? Explore my “Brief Book Series” for clear, provocative books on history,
politics, AI, technology, and modern life. Available on Google Play and Barnes
& Noble.
No comments:
Post a Comment