RMAFC planned review of wages of public office holders

“It is the intention of the commission to review remuneration of public office holders this year and the process will determine whether it will be a reduction or an increase…” — Chairman of the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission, Mr Elias Mbam while addressing press on Monday, January 27, 20120

A lot of emotions have been expressed since Monday when the chairman of the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission, Elias Mbam, made public the intention of the RMAFC to review the remuneration of the public office holders this year. Not a few Nigerians are of the opinion that the country’s serving political office holders are among the highest paid in the world despite its revenue challenges. The commission is empowered by Section 32(d) of Part 1 of the Third Schedule of the Constitution to determine the emoluments of political office holders.

This newspaper on Tuesday reported that at present, the President and Vice President earn N3.5m and N3.03m as basic salary, per annum, respectively, according to the breakdown made available by the RMAFC.  In the same vein, the annual basic salaries of political office holders are: minister, N2.02m; minister of state, N1.95m; Special Adviser, N1.94m; governor, N2.22m, deputy governor, N2.11m, and commissioner, N1.33m.

Apart from the basic salary, the President is also entitled to allowances such as hardship allowance, which is 50 per cent of his salary, about N1.757m, and constituency allowance - 250 per cent of his salary, which amounts to about N8.79m. The President’s gratuity is 300 per cent of his salary, amounting to N10, 544,115, and he is also entitled to a leave allowance of 10 per cent of his salary, as well as a vehicle loan which amounts to 400 per cent of the salary.

The Vice President, governors, members of the National Assembly and some other categories of political office holders also receive similar allowances in different amounts. Other regular allowances enjoyed by the President, Vice President, the governors and members of the National Assembly include personal assistant, constituency, vehicle fuelling/maintenance, domestic staff, entertainment, recess, newspaper/periodicals and utilities. Also included are house maintenance, security, special assistant, furniture, wardrobe, duty tour, accommodation, estacode and medical allowances.

According to the current revenue sharing formula, the Federal Government takes 52.68 per cent from the Federation Account, the 36 states collect 26.72 per cent, while the 774 local government areas receive 20.60 per cent.

It is true that Nigeria is rated as a ‘lower middle-income country’ by the World Bank. Given the parlous state of our economy, I agree with the majority opinion for the reduction in the remuneration and other perks of office of our political office holders. Otherwise, it should be left as it is but not a kobo more should be approved for these overfed and over-pampered elected and appointed political office holders.

My grouse with any increase in the remuneration of these politicians is borne out of the fact that politics or political appointments and elections are not supposed to be a career but a call to service. Many of the people who are elected as president, governors, LG chairpersons or as members of national and state legislatures are not fresh graduates from tertiary institutions or rookies but people who are well-made professionals or civil servants. There is no one among the 43 member federal cabinet who is not already at least a millionaire before their appointment into office as a minister.

To validate my point, let’s take a cursory look at some of the past presidents, vice presidents and governors who have made their asset declaration forms open.

On June 28, 2007, when President Umaru Yar’Adua made public his asset declaration form, he was worth N856,452,892 in cash and landed properties. His liabilities as of May 28, 2007 stood at N88,793,269.77. Nineteen million naira of the assets belonged to his wife, Turai.

The President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) in September 2015 made public his asset. He stated that he had N30m in his bank account before he assumed office in May of that year. This is in addition to owning 270 cows, 25 sheep, five horses, birds and economic trees. He also has five houses in Kaduna, Daura, Kano and Abuja while also owning a plot of land each in Port Harcourt and Kano; farms, an orchard and some cars.

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo in 2015 toed the line of the President by making his asset declaration form public. According to news reports, the VP has: “A bank balance of about N94m and $900,000 in his bank accounts.” The houses owned by Osinbajo back then were listed as “four-bedroomed residence on Victoria Garden City, Lagos, and a three-bedroom flat in Ikoyi; two-bedroom flat on Redemption Camp on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and a three-bedroom mortgaged property in Bedford, England.

In December 2010, during his first tenure as governor of Ekiti State, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, declared that he was worth N750m. He disclosed that he had assets in four countries spread across Africa, Europe and the United States. His deputy then, now deceased, Funmi Olayinka, had assets worth N1.2bn. In September 2015, the then senator representing Kaduna Central Senatorial District, Shehu Sani, publicly declared his assets.  He said he has a total of N22m in three bank accounts. The senator, also said in a statement that he owned two residential houses in Kaduna, two houses under lease in Kaduna, two uncompleted office apartments in Kaduna, one residential house in Abuja, one family-inherited house in Kurfi, Katsina State, and one family-inherited house in Minna, Niger State. He said he authored over 30 books published in Nigeria, United States and United Kingdom with royalties and publishes a community journal ‘Peace Magazine’.

Last July, Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State shocked the country with a publicly declared asset worth over N48bn. According to a statement by his chief press secretary, Makinde said he had cash at hand and in the bank worth N234,742,296.01, as of May 28, 2019.

These seven instances are just samples of the worth of our public office holders. They are accomplished and successful businessmen and women, professionals and retired public servants before joining politics or being appointed into office. Thus, the extant remuneration should actually be reduced and not upwardly reviewed under any guise. Public office should be about service and not personal aggrandisement. Indeed, many of our political office holders can afford to serve for free given their wealthy status before their election or appointment. They should therefore not be further indulged with increased remuneration under the guise of the recently approved increase in the minimum wage. They are not civil servants or private sector employees.

And lest we forget, the current remuneration package is not why political office seekers spend billions to realise their ambitions via election or appointment. It is more due to the influence the offices attract, the unaccounted for ‘security vote’ and corrupt practices they will be able to indulge in such as collection of kickbacks from government contractors, abuse of office through award of contracts to unqualified  fronts and cronies as well as outright pilfering of government resources. Yet, not all of these public office holders are corrupt but many of them are deemed so.