The Chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption (PACAC) has revealed that what Nigerian federal lawmakers, especially the principal officers, is in multiples of the N700,000 and N13.5 million for overhead which Sen Shehu Sani recently declared.
According to Prof. Itse Sagay in an interview with the Punch, the N13m allowances being received by the senators is only a fraction of what the lawmakers earn monthly.
The senior advocate said Nigerians will be shocked when he releases details of the allowances of the principal officers of the National Assembly.
“There are many things the press doesn’t know yet,” Sagay said.
“If you come to know the allowances that the leadership of the two houses are getting… My God! It will blow up the country.”
“What does he [Saraki] get as Senate President? What is the leader of the House getting, what is the deputy leader of the House getting? What is the Deputy Senate President getting? What are the minority leaders getting in both houses?
“Go and find out. It is an explosive stuff, I tell you.”
He promised to come out with the exact figures he is working on when they are ready.
The law professor described Senator Abdullahi Sabi, the Senate spokesperson, as hypocrite for saying that the N13.5m allowances were already in the public domain.
According to Sagay, the figure Sani’s revealed conflicts with the details Sen. President Bukola Saraki released last year.
“What they released then was their salaries which the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission approved for them,” PACAC’s chairman said.
But he noted what the lawmakers are hiding now are the allowances they voted for themselves.
“The salary details released was just about N700,000 but what they voted for themselves is about 20 times that amount. That is the whole point and they were hiding it.”
Sagay has been in constant brushes with the NASS for a while now, and the reason, he said, was that he came out with the figures of their earning last year.
“And now it has come out in the open and Sabi Abdullahi is saying it is nothing new but you were denying it in the past,” he told the newspaper.
So, they have a guilty conscience because they know what they are doing is shameful.”
Nigerians lawmakers have a reputation for being the highest paid political office holders on the globe. Besides, the details of their earning have been shrouded in secrecy.
Efforts by citizens and civil societies to make them transparent by FOI requests and protests have failed.