The canker of jumbo emoluments at the top stratum of
public service in the three tiers of government has bedeviled the Nigerian state since the return to civil rule in 1999. Under the immediate past administration the larva canker metamorphosed to a fearsome pupa that has defied the natural phenomenon to lose grip, and burst its over-fed body on the ground beneath; instead, the behemoth has devoured us for the past 16 years! The jumbo emoluments comprising salaries and allowances are both unjustifiable and unsustainable. All of us are collectively responsible for its origin and sustenance, and must collectively stand up to end it.
The current reported palliative and fire-brigade conference between the lawmakers and the Revenue Mobilization, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) to review the remuneration of affected public office-holders is both face-saving and belated: both the legislators and RMAFC members are beneficiaries of any recommended remuneration package, and would ordinarily not freely give up the honey bottle they had sucked in the past 16 years; no, not after the legislators had just passed through the valley of shadow of death at recent electioneering.
Acting sincerely and altruistically, the RMAFC would have even before the party primaries produced a revised remuneration package for the legislators (in line with S.70 of the Constitution), as for the prospective contestants to make an informed assessment of the profitability of their office-seeking ventures. But after they have gained political power with reasonable bargaining power, we expect that they will give up their jumbo pays without a strong resistance, or we’re calling on Buhari to do the politically inexpedient that almost cost pugilist OBJ his seat in 1999. No, to stop them requires the workforce of about 177 million Nigerians who had been short-changed in the political office-holders’ jumbo pays.
We the people had over the past 16 years complained and barked without biting the legislators — suffering and smiling, and hobnobbing with our oppressors! Even when RMAFC in July 2011 by newspaper advertorials distanced itself from the jumbo pays appropriated by the legislators (and extended to other top public servants), the wider public and a vociferous Civil Society Organization would not take cue to start a determined fight; it is claimed (and factually so) that key members of the CSOs are complicit in siphoning part of the National Assembly’s (NASS) bloated annual budgets through phony programmes (the case of N250m CSO dole-out in Senate’s 2010 budget is cited); in like manner, the leadership of frontline labour unions has been complicit in running the affairs of their unions, and thus lack the moral gumption to credibly challenge the rapacity of legislators and political office holders: a cover-up action has been organized labour’s frequent (and often successful) demand for unsustainable wage increases from a spineless political leadership. The rot snowballed into the current position where governments now need to borrow to pay the backlog of workers’ emoluments. So, how do we get out of this conundrum?
What is currently being formulated by NASS and RMAFC amounts to the concoction of an alchemist: being beneficiaries of its recommendations, RMAFC members alone cannot be unbiased judges in their case. It thus behooves the organized labour (NLC, TUC, ASUU, etc) to partner competent CSO representatives to propose a realistic remuneration package for the new legislators, and engage RMAFC on the strength of knowledge to this effect. The offer of N500,000 and N400,000 monthly emolument for each Senator and Rep, respectively, has been repeatedly proposed, and legislators will have the option to take it or resign.
Invariably, RMAFC should appoint or constitute a reputable management consulting team with representatives from public sector management institutes (like ASCON and Centre for Management Development, CMD) to carry out an operational audit on the National Assembly, with a view to removing the overtly inefficient processes built in to serve the greed of committee chairmen and members; NASS has so far not been structured to operate in an efficient manner. The audit will expunge provocative items like individual legislative aides (for covering up incompetent legislators), security vote, medical and physical fitness, refreshments, SUVs for the leadership and committee chairmen, etc, etc. The audit will also verify the claim by management experts that NASS’ true expenditure can be contained with an annual budget of N25 billion, as opposed to the present annual budget theft of N150bn being perpetrated in the past four years.
The contagious effects of legislators’ jumbo emoluments have spread to the entire labour market, and containing these diseases will equally stabilize wage, buoy workers’ real wage, and positively impact job creation, among the numerous benefits.
The payment of N8.64bn as allowances to the legislators can be tolerated as a pragmatic kind gesture to provide the politicians with a breather from the biting effect of their recent campaign expenses; it is a repayable soft loan for them to settle down in Abuja, and not for furniture and accommodation. Nigerians should ask questions on the purported auction of Apo Legislative Quarters meant to house newly elected legislators; the EFCC should once be directed to recover the quarters from the previous lawmakers that thought they could corner them to themselves and turn round to ask for housing allowance for new lawmakers. Also to be recovered are all the allowances in excess of what RMAFC recommended for past political office-holders.
The task of ensuring justice and fair play in this vexatious and disruptive jumbo pay issue cannot be left for the RMAFC and legislators alone to perform. In countries like the UK, Canada, Sweden, Kenya and Ghana with incidents of parliamentary financial scandals of even lesser proportions, mechanisms were put in place for independent bodies to both recover all stolen funds and determine appropriate emoluments and accounting systems for legislators to efficiently discharge their responsibilities. Our political office-holders have capitalized on our indifference and uncoordinated complaints to defraud us for so long. It is necessary that Nigerians should go out now with a proposed remuneration package and occupy the gates of RMAFC and NASS to ensure the eradication of jumbo pay and budget theft in the present dispensation. Now is our chance to kill the canker!
Anyanwu is a senior economist with C-JET, a Civil Society Group in Port Harcourt.

Victor Anyanwu