In an interview with Arise TV, former legislator Ishaku Elisha Abbo, who represented Adamawa North Senatorial District in Adamawa, a state in the country’s northern area, stated that his pay and other perks while serving as a senator totaled N14.4 million, or $8,000 today. However, he divulged that the salary today is about N29 million, ($18,000).
During the interview, the former senator also argued that the money senators receive is not as much as people make it out to be.
“N29 million looks big on paper, just on paper, I am saying this as a very honest man. I am not trying to support the National Assembly, an institution so vilified and I have been a member of that vilified institution for 5 years, I am not siding with them, but I will bear the facts on the table,” he said.
“When I was in the senate, my monthly salary and allowances put together was about N14.4 million, and at the end of the month, the company I founded, which I was the managing director and CEO, when I won the election, I had to leave the company to go into governance, I had to start subsiding my own life,” he continued.
“Because the money allocated to my office was N14 million which was absolutely nothing considering the demands, the want, the challenges,”
He noted that considering the aid he himself had to render, including paying hospital bills and scholarships, the money being paid to him monthly as senator simply wasn’t enough.
“Every month from all over Adamawa state, in fact at a point from all over the country my office is besieged with people looking for help. At one point I had to start calling some state governors to help me with cases that are being brought from their state to my office,” the former legislator stated.
“I am paying a lot of people’s scholarship in my office, I am subsidizing some people’s life in my office, while a state governor in this country is going home with over N700 million every single month, some go home with N1 billion,” he added.
The ex-senator however clarified that the governors do not take home the money but use it to handle their state responsibilities.
Disputes on senators salaries
The interview is following the hot button topic that was raised by former president of Nigeria Olusegun Obasanjo, who questioned the morality of the Nigerian senate, considering the exorbitant amount they are paid monthly, despite the deteriorating economic situation in the West African country.
The former president argued that the senate should not be in charge of setting their own salaries, and most of them should be jailed.
Senator Shehu Sani, a former legislator, said senators get a monthly running cost of ₦13.5 million in addition to their ₦750,000 pay.
In response, the Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMFAC) disclosed that all 109 senators get a monthly salary of ₦1,063,860.
