Chairman, Senate Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Senator Aliyu Abdullahi during a programme ‘Politics Today’ on Channels Television refused to state the amount Senators earn monthly as salary, because he considers asking impolite.
“You don’t expect me to come out on national television to say this is what I earn, it is not done. I cannot ask you as a journalist how much you earn, it is not done”
Abdullahi stated that anyone interested in knowing the amount Senators earn, should get it from Revenue Mobilisation and Fiscal Allocation Commission (RMFAC) adding that the documents were available.
He pointed out that the figures released by the Chairman, Committee on Anti-Corruption Prof Itse Sagay, were untrue stressing that the Senate’s budget was not as high as what he claims the Prof exaggerated.
The Senator expressed displeasure and claimed the Chairman was causing unnecessary tension between the National Assembly and the Presidency.
Abdullahi said he cannot confirm or deny the figures, which stood at N14m for Senators and N8m per month for House of Representative members, which channels television arrived at.
“This issue has become a recurring decimal in the last two years, people have been discussing this matter and I always ask myself what do people really want to believe? I think if this subject matter has been discussed for two years and we are still looking at issues wrongly, then I think there is something wrong with us”
“The institutions that are responsible for providing this information are there. A law was promulgated on Top Salary Scale also known as TOPSA and it is based on this scale that everyone who holds one political office or the other gets paid”
It would be recalled that Prof Sagay last week, said that a Nigerian Senator earns approximately N2, 484, 000 as a basic salary per annum, adding that allowances makes it N29m a month and over N3bn annually.
