Youths protest lawmakers' jumbo pay in Abuja, Lagos

A coalition of Nigerian youths on Thursday besieged both the National Assembly in Abuja and Lagos State House of Assembly to protest the alleged jumbo pay of the federal lawmakers.

The Lagos protesters, numbering 25, were said to have mobilised themselves via Twitter, Facebook and other social media.

Leader of the Abuja protesters, Yemi Adamolekun, said the N150bn annual budget of the federal legislators, consisting 109 senators and 360 representatives, 'was too much in the midst of the pervading abject poverty across the land.'

Adamolekun also alleged that most of the federal lawmakers had abandoned their consituecies and were unreachable by the people that voted for them.

Dada Olusegun who spoke for the Lagos protesters said a situation whereby the remuneration of a Nigerian federal lawmaker was 116 times more than the GDP per capita income of citizens 'is not only unfair but wicked.'

Olusegun, who accused the National Assembly of 'milking the country dry,' argued that that the lawmakers should consider the suffering of the masses and cut down on their salaries and allowances.

He said, 'We the citizens of this country are the employers of the National Assembly members and as such they are our employees. Why on earth will 469 people which are less than 0.01 per cent of the entire population of the country appropriate the sum of N150bn to themselves in one year?

'The country is plagued with infrastructural decay; our roads are inaccessible, while the electorates wallow in abject poverty. But our legislators on account of their fat pay live a flamboyant lifestyle. Our democracy is too expensive and we have had enough of this.'

The protesting youths delivered a protest letter to the Chief Security Officer of the LSHA, Mr. Idowu Kusoro, for onward transmission to the Clerk of the National Assembly.

But responding to the allegations, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Information, Media and Public Affairs, Senator Eyinnaya Abaribe, challenged the protesters to a debate on the salary of the Nigerian legislators.

He said most Nigerians, especially the youths, were either acting in ignorance or out of misinformation on the affairs of the National Assembly.

Abaribe said the protesters made a mistake by claiming that the National Assembly was made up of only 469 people.

He said, 'The National Assembly budget is just three per cent of the national budget; three per cent of the other two arms of government. The waste is from the 97 per cent represented by the other two arms of government.'

He also debunked the claims by the protesters that lawmakers had alienated the people because each of them was accountable to their constituents.

He said, 'All Nigerians have a representative in the National Assembly. My constituents in Abia South Senatorial, which I represent, know me and I am accountable to them.

'It is the responsibility of Nigerians to go to each of their representatives in the National Assembly and ask for their constituency contacts. You should know those who are representing you; my constituents have my contact.'