ELF-INDULGENCE is ever present in the National Assembly. But the latest act of licentiousness trumps them all. Senate President, Bukola Saraki, has just taken delivery of luxury official cars worth N330 million. It appears to be the first delivery of the N4.7 billion worth of exotic vehicles the Eighth National Assembly is desperate to acquire.
Nothing can explain away the impunity and insensitivity of the Saraki-led Senate. The economic implications of this action are glaring, including more pressure on the naira with the importation of these needless luxury items. The national currency exchanged at N330 to a dollar on Friday, while the foreign reserves have plunged to $27.8 billion from a high of $47 billion in 2007. It is inexplicable that Saraki and his colleagues are not bothered by factory closures, job losses, poor infrastructure and lack of social services.
It is a distasteful bazaar. As a mark of their impunity, our lawmakers have tenaciously opposed all requests to transparently declare their allowances. In 2013, The Economist of London laid bare the excesses of the National Assembly, when it declared that a Nigerian lawmaker, with an annual take-home pay of $189,500, earned the highest emolument among parliamentarians in the world. According to the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission, the lawmakers’ pay is nowhere near this. But impunity enables them to expropriate huge allowances for themselves. With Nigeria’s GDP at just $568 billion (World Bank), it is obvious that the country’s economy cannot sustain that kind of jumbo pay package. In comparison, in the US, which has a GDP of $17.9 trillion, lawmakers earn $174,000 per annum.
Apart from public outcry, two Nigerians who should know when the red line is crossed, President Muhammadu Buhari and former President Olusegun Obasanjo, took exception to this wasteful spending. This confirms the notoriety of Saraki and his colleagues, and their disdain for public opinion. Economically, Nigeria is at a crossroads. Thus, the argument by Saraki that the cars are for security purposes is puerile. This is not the time for him to play the ostrich, pretending that there is no problem in the country.
The All Progressives Congress-led administration should improve the public perception of government. Corruption is as evil as extravagance in the public service. Regrettably, our public space harbours these two forms of recklessness. For public office holders to be living large at the expense of an impoverished population is immoral. China, the world’s second-largest economy, with all its wealth – $3 trillion reserves – announced in 2014 motley measures banning the use of luxury cars, eliminating lavish gifts for government officials, and limiting the scope of galas, official dinners, and special privileges that party and public officials have long enjoyed. The Senate must uphold the time-honoured principle of public office being a public trust.
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It appears a solid wedge has been driven into their ears and logs pushed into their eyes such that they can neither hear nor see. As long as their ego is oiled, other people can go to hell for all they care. It’s the height of irresponsibility and insensitivity.