The highest paid senator does not earn more than N900,000 monthly basic salary, Senate Leader Victor Ndoma-Egba (SAN) has said.
The senator said claims that lawmakers earn ‘jumbo’ salaries were not true, adding that he once earned N25,000 per month in the Senate.
He said contrary to the figures peddled in the media, only five per cent of the national budget goes to the National Assembly.
The lawyer wondered why Nigerians were not asking questions about how the remaining 95 per cent is utilised, adding that they are only being distracted from the real issues.
Ndoma-Egba was responding to a presentation by Prof Nsongurua Udombana, at a programme organised by the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) Section on Public Interest and Development Law (SPIDEL) at the union’s ongoing Annual General Conference in Calabar, the Cross River State capital.
Udombana, a professor of International Law, in a paper titled: Justice in Public Interest, said corruption has eaten up the country, while the hard work of the many is being lost to the selfish desires of a few.
He criticised the National Assembly’s salary structure, which he said was among the highest in the world.
According to him, as at 2009, a senator in Nigeria earned N240 million (about $1.7 million) in salaries and allowances, while his United States’ (U.S) counterpart earned $174,000 and his United Kingdom’s (U.K.) counterpart earned about $100,000 annually.
But Ndoma-Egba said the tales about jumbo pay were more fictitious than real.
“When I got to the Senate in 2003, my salary in the first three months was N25,000. I can tell you here that the highest paid senator in Nigeria earns not more than N900,000!
“In the figure released recently, I am supposed to earn the same salary as a Supreme Court Justice and a minister, but their salaries are not called ‘jumbo pay’,” he said.
Udombana, however, said the “jumbo pay” earned by lawmakers was unfair.
According to him, corruption has become a counter-force to creativity with the dire consequences on the nation.
This is not bad though …