By Emman Ovuakporie
A member of the House of Representatives, Hon Rimamande Kwewum Shawhulu (PDP, Taraba) on Friday advised the National Assembly leadership to declare the account of the legislature public.
Shawhulu made this declaration in a chat with TheNewsGuru.com, TNG when asked about the true emoluments of Federal lawmakers in Nigeria.
The Taraba born lawmaker said “even professors and enlightened Nigerians believe that members of the House of Representatives earn N24m a month and unfortunately this is wrong.
Asked what is the Federal legislature doing to correct this impression, Shawhulu said:
“Well, it is an ongoing process and we can learn from what is happening in other climes but I also want to tell you that generally around the world the legislature has very poor image but if you make the mistake to say you don’t want the legislature to exist, you will have riots on the streets as it happened last year when the prime minister of the United Kingdom wanted to put aside the parliament, there was riot, millions of people came out on the street because that is the symbol that people are participating in government.
“One or two things that I think are important, it is very important that we open up the national assembly, the way we go to look at the budget of other ministries and we publish them, we have to open up our budget and our expenditure to the public, that is one and if we do that it will not resolve our problem but it will reduce.
“Other budgets they are line by line, we should do line by line in the budget of the national assembly.
Number two is that we need to increase our interaction with our constituency and the general public, how that will be done remains to be seen. But I want to tell you that the pressure that the parliamentarians in Africa, in Nigeria face is not the same type of pressure that the parliamentarian in Europe faces, they are completely different.
In 2016 I went for a programme at the UK parliament where a member of the House of Commons came to speak to us and she said last week she went to her constituency and I said wow, what happened there, how many people?
Nobody goes to a member of congress or House of Commons to pay his children’s school fees, for burial, to do any of those things; they highest favour they will go is they want a letter of introduction to a ministry or for something to happen or they want him the parliamentarian to appear at a public function somewhere. So one of the reasons you see members sometimes appear that they want to see people is that the pressure is really much.
In 2003 I was a parliamentary staff here, I worked with the then speaker and a member of the house of reps from Bauchi was complaining on the corridor and I asked him what was the matter, he said since I came here 1999 and we are about to leave, nobody has ever come from my constituency to ask me what I am doing about this or that problem, everybody that has come, the child is sick, the child is going to school, he is getting married, there is burial ceremony, there is this, there is that; so that is the pressure we are under.
That we have to write letters to look for jobs and majority of the people that are not happy with the parliamentarians actually are not happy because they think that he is making so much money and he is giving them so little or nothing at all.
I have met well educated people, professors who tell me that members of the house of reps collect N24million per month, fortunately that day I was holding my pay slip and I showed my pay slip.
A former chairman of my local government was in the car with me one day when we immediately resumed in the 8th assembly, the alert of my salary came and I showed him and he said no, that if I had not shown him he would never had believed that is what we were collecting.
But then how many people can you explain to, how can an educated person for instance say that members of the house of reps collect N24million per month. N24million times by 360 times 12 months will give you much and what is the budget of the national assembly that they can give one member N24million times 360 times 12 it is about N103billion in a year, just for the house alone, how possible is it but out there that is what people believe.
And that is why I advocate that we should open up the national assembly, let the public know what we are getting here and if people know that maybe the pressure will reduce or if people think that what members are getting is not justified then they can work for a new system to pay.
Let me ask you, how many former members have you seen that has money after one year on leaving office. “As I sit in the office here I can tell you the number of former members that are looking for what you cannot believe. So if we open up national assembly maybe we will have more credibility, this is my argument.