•Yakubu Dogara
A former speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara today said lawmakers’ monthly earnings cannot last them for more than three days.
This was as he urged the legislators to open their finances to dispel the insinuation that they were taking a humongous monthly salary, reports The PUNCH.
Dogara made this disclosure while speaking at the first-ever legislative open week of the House in Abuja.
According to the Peoples Democratic Party chieftain, his monthly salary was less than N400,000 during his time as a Rep member, while his monthly allowance as a presiding officer was N25 million, stressing that the lawmakers’ earnings have been on the front burner for a while even though their allowances cannot last them for more than three days.
He said, “While I was a Speaker, my salary was less than N400,000. I don’t know if it has been increased now. My total impress was N25 million, and I told my accountant to open a separate account for the impress, and I never for once took any money out of that account. Everything that came into that account was used to cater to the needs of constituents.
“My accountant complained of the level of demand on the account, and I told him if the money there is finished, borrow it. When money comes, you return it to where you had taken money from.
“I am saying this so Nigerians will give their legislatures breathing space and know that the narrative is not true about members’ pay.
“We all know that democracy is expensive, and if we think that it is too expensive, maybe we should ask our political scientists to develop for us a local model that will be cheaper for us.”
The former speaker further urged the lawmakers to stop the people from bullying them into surrendering the current democracy for whatever reason.
Recall that recently, the Deputy Speaker of the House, Benjamin Kalu, said the current salaries of federal lawmakers cannot take them home to do the jobs they were elected to do.
While stressing that the take home pay of the average lawmaker is a ‘far cry’ from what people insinuate, Kalu called for understanding, saying the call for the slashing of their salary by 50 per cent is not the solution to the current problem.
Kalu said, “At the moment, talking about the salary of the National Assembly. I have said this over and again; it is not as much as people think. Salary is different from allowance, which is meant to do the jobs our constituents have sent us to do.”
