Political office holders, including President Umaru Yar’Adua and Vice-President Goodluck Jonathan, earn a whopping N1.13tn annually as salaries and allowances.

The figure, contained in a document by the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission, is only 39 per cent lower than the N2.9tn budget for 2009 sent to the National Assembly by Yar’Adua for approval.

The copies of the document titled “Affordability and Cost Implications of the Reviewed Renumeration Package” were attached to the letter that the commission got from Yar’Adua on the proposed pay cut.

The copies of the document were distributed to the RMAFC commsissioners who on Thursday began deliberations on the President’s proposed reduction in salaries and allowances of political office holders.

The President had on Tuesday said he would write the commission to slash the salaries and allowances of all political office holders in view of the nation’s declining revenue caused by global financial meltdown.

The emoluments scale-down affects public officers and political appointees in the Federal, State and Local Government levels; and it involves a huge N1.126trn, paid out annually, according to the document.

The RMAFC document had justified the existing N1.126trn emoluments and its affordability, when it was prepared in 2008.

Details of what each of the three tiers of government collects is as follows: “N173bn(federal), N360bn(states) and N592bn (Local Government respectively).”

The salaries and allowances, which were approved in April 2008, provoked a national debate on the rationale amid increasing mass poverty.

But the RMAFC had argued that the increase was based on the depreciation in value of the salaries of the affected officers and what it considered as “progress registered in the economy in recent years,” which had seen real Gross Domestic Product accelerate.

Before the hike, public office holders’ emoluments had grossed about N751bn per annum, including the N9.9bn used in settling emoluments of Federal judicial officers and N288bn for Local Government legislatures.

For Federal, State and Local Government, pre-April 2008 packages for public officers stood at N115bn, 240bn and 395bn respectively.

The RMAFC emergency meeting took place at the commission’s headquarters with most of its 27 Commissioners in attendance.

Yar’Adua, in his letter read by the Commission’s Chairman in charge of Business Session, Gen. Obala, stated that, “Our country has become a victim, like all other countries, of the current global financial meltdown.

“This can only be mitigated through a responsive review of recurrent costs to maintain the momentum of our development.”

The President noted that decline in oil sales and shrinking foreign inflow of investments were serious concerns, which needed redemptive measures.

The Chairman of the RMAFC , Alhaji Mamman Tukur, who described the task before his commission as“very complex”, declined comments on the time- frame for the completion of the assignment.

He said, “We are looking at market conditions, Gross Domestic Product and inflation. The President is in charge of everybody. He has seen that the economy cannot take it (current pay size).

“The effect of this letter (Yar’Adua’s) has a very wide implication.”

He added that the commission’s proposals were recommendations that the Federal Government would forward to lawmakers in the federal, state and local government level for approval.

By the statutory nature of RMAFC’s assignment, Turkur said that their recommendations would not be jettisoned by any legislature, stressing that lawmakers were constitutionally barred from fixing their salaries and allowances.

“They can only reduce but not add,” he explained.

The 1999 Constitution in its Third Schedule 32 (d) empowers only RMAFC to, “determine the remuneration appropriate for political office holders including the President, Vice-President, Governors, Deputy Governors, Ministers Commissioners, Special Advisers, Legislators and the holders of the offices in Section 84 and 124.”

As at April last year, the country had 17,474 political and public office holders, of which 8,692 represented lawmakers in Local Government Legislature. The Executives in the councils were 3,096.

Others include state Judiciary 792, state Legislature 1,152, Federal Judiciary 142, Federal Legislature 464 and Federal Executive 472.

It could not be ascertained as at 9pm on Thursday if the figure had increased.

Meanwhile, the salary cut being proposed by Yar’Adua is unlikely to receive the endorsement of the members of the National Assembly.

Our correspondents gathered in Abuja on Thursday that Senators had since the President’s announcement of the plan adopted an attitude of “let’s wait and see.”

There is no indication yet that the Senate leadership is contemplating emulating the example of the President.

Although opinions, for now, appear divided over the issue, the implication of the proposal has generated considerable interest among legislators.

But the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Media and Publicity, Senator Ayogu Eze, however dismissed such insinuations. He said “I am not aware of any such thing.”





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I want to particularly reply a port Harcourt based social critic - the publisher of hard truth newspaper who said this morning on the radio that the president has no remedy for the global crisis to offer Nigerians just because he wants to cut political officers' pay. i think this is one of the reasons the whites regard us as sub humans. how can we use almost half of the revenues of a nation to pay less than 1% of the population for doing nothing and still expect to become a rich nation? i mean they do 'nothing' because we do not have common electricity- light has only come in my house about 8 hours since this year and i stay in an urban centre. are we fooling ourselves by calling on foreign investors to come in? the N1.13tr is besides the contract monies that are signed off that don't come to fruition e.g. the N300bn spent by chief anini on roads, and now he's appointed back in office again; 'God Knows how much' spent on a failed NigSat 2 satelite; and $16bn spent on phcn by obj. this N1.13 does not even include public servants of any of the three tiers of government, and even if it does, is still outrageous.

although i'm not in full agreement with the president's programs for the country, especially seeing his appointees, but the pay cut should have been done long ago, probably as he resumed duty or before. it's only in poor countries like Nigeria that people go into government with the purpose of self enrichment at the detriment of every other person. countries that play that way can never be rich even if all their lands are as 'oil-filled' as bakassi. politicians in US for instance go there to make name by their achievements but we go to make money, and we still remain poor after making 'all the money'. i feel if our politicians are really sincere about rebuilding this nation, they should forfeit their salaries and work for free. if they do this only one year we would have gone 5 years forward as a nation. if they are not prepared to serve for free, i bet there are over a million Nigerians ready to do so including myself. just call for a survey and you'd be amazed at the response both home and abroad.

for the social critic to advice political officers to go on strike in protest of the proposed pay slash means he's benefiting from the jumbo pay directly or indirectly. of course he once accepted a PDP appointment to be campaign chairman that ushered in the erstwhile governor celestine omehia of rivers state. i think he has to think a little more before rushing to the electronic media to speak.

Nduka,the owner and editor of thisday newspaper made his money by spinning for babangid,he was just a fresh college graduate of university of benin with no family background wealth whatsoever,but as soon he joined ibb crew,he became a multi millionaire and set up thisday.

Most of those mainstream medias are just mouth piece for the corrupt monsters.Brown envelope phenomenon

Hmmmm.