Friday, 05 March 2010 22:50 Daniel Elombah Nigeria politicians are among of the highest paid in the world while Nigeria’s civil servants are some of the lowest paid in the world

In its New Human Development Reports, AfricaFocus Bulletin reports today that "Between 1985 and 2004, inequality in Nigeria worsened from 0.43 to 0.49, placing the country among those with the highest inequality levels in the world.

In a country that is so rich that it could afford to lose the sum of N300bn ($1.4bn)in oil revenue in four months in 2009- because The Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) did not lodge the oil revenue into the nation’s coffers, over 70 percent of the population lives in abject poverty.

Why, according to Transparency International, Nigeria politicians are among of the highest paid in the world while Nigeria’s civil servants are some of the lowest paid in the world.

Many studies have shown that despite its vast resources, Nigeria ranks among the most unequal countries in the world. The poverty problem in the country is partly a feature of high inequality which manifests in highly unequal income distribution and differential access to basic infrastructure, education, training and job opportunities." - UNDP Human Development Report, 2008-2009

In this blessed country, the 107 senators (excluding the Senate President and his deputy) will collect N11 million in basic salaries and regular allowances every year while a member of the House of Representatives will get N9.9 million.

The regular allowances are accommodation, car maintenance, domestic staff, personal assistant, entertainment, leave, utilities, newspaper/periodicals and constituency. These figures do not include non-regular allowances-- vehicle loan, furniture allowance, estacode, and duty tour allowance and severance gratuity--which are paid separately to each legislator as they become due.

Under the current remuneration regime, each senator is entitled to N3 million as furniture allowance and N5 million as car loan once every four years, and is also entitled to N6 million as severance gratuity after the "successful" completion of his/her tenure. Also, a senator is also to collect N23, 000 per day when on official trip as duty tour allowance, and $600 per day as estacode when on foreign trip.

A member of the House is entitled to N744, 454 furniture allowance and N4.96 million car loan once every four years, while a Rep's severance package is N5.96 million, estacode, $550 and duty tour allowance, N21,000.

The true cost of a senator service per year is beyond outrageous. These figures are for one senator.

Factor in the figures for each house of representative, governor, state assembly legislator, commissioner, special adviser to governor, special adviser to president, LG chairman, LG council person, president, deputy president, minister, etc.

These emoluments are criminally outrageous and absolutely repugnant. There is no way we can afford or survive this kind of inequality.

Where a School teachers in Nigeria are generally poorly paid that there is a saying that teachers take-home pay is so low that it cannot even take them home, it's either we end up cannibalizing out ourselves in a do-or-die struggle for money or the state flares up in an orgy of crime and wanton destruction of lives and property.

The National Assembly this week hypocritically set up a Committee to examine the root causes of dangerous crime in Nigeria. The conscience deadened Lawmakers were stirred because of the horror that occurred along Lagos-Benin Road.

The Senate had on Wednesday summoned all those charged with security including the Police Affairs Minister and the IG to appear before it and explain why the state of insecurity in the country had reached such a frightening level.

The Senate summons followed a motion by Senator Ayogu Eze and 58 others over the audacious robbery on Benin-Ore Road in which several people were allegedly killed.

The Lawmakers should not look too far!

"The minimum wage was reviewed last in 2000; that is over eight years ago. Whereas the wages of the political class have gone up by 800 percent in the last one year, nothing has happened to the wages of workers.

In Nigeria, the minimum wage is 5,500 naira [$40]. The Nigerian Labor Congress says it wants $350. The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the current minimum wage at the federal level is N7,500. So you find that the average worker cannot afford even the basic necessities of life.

Thousands of Nigerians have already lost their jobs in recent months, and government officials warn there could be further layoffs across all sectors if unions ask employers for more money.

In February 23, 2010, The Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria in Abuja canvassed for a minimum wage of N100,000 for civil servants in the country. Compared to what politicians earn, this is peanuts, Yes, it is outrageous.

I heard the Inspector General Of Police, Ogbonnaya Onovo at that Senate hearing “threw more light” on the robbery, which reportedly occurred on February 25, 2010, during which the driver of the luxury bus was at gun point allegedly ordered by the armed robbers to run over passengers who did not have money on them, the IG debunked the story, saying the incident actually took place on July 31, 2009 and said “there is no crime free society. What we are asking for now is adequate logistics and of course fighting crime from the root”.

As if the difference in the date makes all the difference!

Onovo should simply expect more kidnappings and more murders.

All of this is to be expected in a country, which is organized to facilitate the looting of public treasuries. We are dealing with an Empire of Thieves: a corrupt administrative state, in which most people aspire to public office, in order to join the ranks of the looters of public treasuries.

We are considering a country, where the average citizen is not shocked, by the fact that the economically non-productive sector, the public sector, consumes about 70 percent of the country's GDP.

People will not even protest the idea that a president could make himself the oil minister, in order to have a free hand, in looting the public treasury with reckless abandon - that the vaults of the Central Bank and the keys to the oil depot are firmly in the pockets of a cabal.

A country where Rtd General Theophilus Danjuma, the man the current Acting President, 2 days ago appointed his chief Adviser, announced with glee, that he made a profit of -wait for it - 500 million Dollars from an oil block the government allocated to him. And he told us days ago that he does not know what to do with the money!

In such a policy, officialdom is merely giving the Thieves in Power a double-bound guarantee. The treasury will be looted in the apogee of criminal moments, but at other times, the administrative state will transfer as much of the country's revenue as possible in the form of salaries, to the same cast of characters, while the poor masses suffer,

, Too bad!!!

To be continued


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