I n v e s t i g a t i o n :How state lawmakers collect billions in salaries – Daily Trust...

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* 976 legislators received N12bn, passed 601 bills in 2 years
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Lawmakers in the 36 State Houses of Assembly have received about N12 billion in salaries and allowances in the irst two years of their tenure and passed 601 bills, most of which were initiated by the governors, Daily Trust investigations revealed.
There are 978 members in the state legislatures, soaking up about N6 billion per annum in emoluments.
A state legislator receives about N6 million per annum, comprising basic salaries and other perquisites, according to a Daily Trust analysis based on records obtained from the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC).
The RMAFC documents were obtained officially through a Freedom of Information Act request filed by this newspaper.
With these emoluments, a state lawmaker earns more than 24 times the country’s Gross Domestic Product per person (GDP).
This means the legislator’s package is 24 times what each Nigerian citizen is worth when the nation’s total wealth is shared by the population.
According to RMAFC records, a state legislator receives an annual basic salary of N1.34 million; accommodation, N802,335; vehicle maintenance, N267,445; and recess allowance, N133,772.
The lawmaker also receives, once in four years, a vehicle loan of N5.3 million, furniture allowance of N2 million and N2.6 million as severance gratuity.
Other yearly emoluments are N334,306 for constituency allowance; N334,306 for domestic staff; N133,772 for utilities; and N66,861 as newspapers allowance.
In addition, the state lawmaker is entitled to N25,000 as duty tour allowance (DTA) per night and 600 US dollars estacode while on foreign trips per night.
Principal officers of the assemblies are entitled to responsibility allowance, while the speaker and his deputy are entitled to security and robe allowances as well as special assistants and legislative aides.
Each lawmaker is also entitled to medicals and special assistants.
The cost of maintaining the state lawmakers is coming to light four months after Daily Trust published details of similar fat-cat emoluments enjoyed by their counterparts in the Senate and House of Representatives, who are on top of the global MPs’ salaries chart.
Executive bills
Daily Trust investigations revealed that despite receiving over N12 billion from June 2011 to June 2013, the lawmakers only passed 601 bills into law.
They appear to be merely waiting to rubber-stamp bills forwarded to them by the executive, as most of the bills passed in the two-year period were annual appropriation bills and supplementary budget bills submitted by the state governors.
Also, there are many states whose assemblies did not pass a single individual member’s bill into law within the period.
In the two years from June 2011 to June 2012, the 202 state lawmakers in the North West passed 122 bills (Katsina State not included as details are not available) and collected N2.424 billion; while 176 legislators from South West received N2.112 billion and passed 107 bills into law (with the exception of those from Ekiti, whose records could not be obtained).
The 158 lawmakers from the South-South, with the exception of Edo where records have not been obtained, had passed 69 bills into law and received N1.896 billion as salaries and allowances.
The North East has 156 state assembly members, who passed 130 bills (with the exception of Borno) after collecting N1.872 billion as emoluments.
The North Central zone, with 158 legislators had collected N1.896 billion and passed into law 125 bills; while the 128 lawmakers from South East had passed 48 bills (with the exception of those from Anambra and Abia states whose records could not be obtained) and received N1.536 billion as emoluments.
‘Stooges of governors’
Commenting on story, Malam Auwal Musa Rafsanjani, the Executive Director, Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC), said the lawmakers lack capacity to perform their functions.
“In Nigeria, the state Houses of Assembly have turned themselves to be the stooges of their state governors as a result of their weaknesses,” he said.
“The state legislatures have failed to ensure full implementation of budgets passed by them by the governors. After reviewing the performance of state Houses of Assembly in the current dispensation, human rights activists, civil society organisations, eminent lawyers and leaders of some political parties, have declared them ‘dead’”.
The CISLAC boss said also that “it is very unfortunate that the doctrine of separation of powers enshrined in the amended 1999 Constitution only exists on paper as the state legislatures have become mere extensions of the executive arm of government, because they are more of toothless bulldogs. Some speakers of the states legislatures and other lawmakers have turned themselves to rubber-stamp to the governors.
“For instance, in many states lawmakers have failed to call their governors to order over their shoddy implementation of the state’s budgets, unbudgeted spending, misconduct, abandonment of capital projects, looting and stealing of public fund etc….
“It on record that most of the state assemblies they don’t hold public hearing, debates and deliberation on key vital important issues that affect their people due to fear of the governors and their incapacitation and inexperience in legislative work.”
Daily Trust contacted the chairman, Conference of Nigerian Speakers, who is also the Speaker of Gombe State House of Assembly, Alhaji Inuwa Garba, for comments, but he said he had no time to answer questions on this story.
He asked our reporter to direct his questions to individual speakers of the state Houses of Assembly.
{Additional reporting from Rakiya Muhammed (Sokoto), Christiana T. Alabi (Kaduna), Ismail Mudashir (Kano), Abdullahi Anako & Abdulkadir Badsha Mukhtar (Dutse), Garba Muhammed (Birnin Kebbi), Shehu Umar (Gusau), Hamisu Kabir Matazu (Damaturu), Adamu Saleh (Gombe), Kabir Anwar (Yola), Ahmed Muhammed (Bauchi), Usman A. Bello (Lokoja), Abdullateef Aliyu (Ilorin), Lami Sadiq (Jos), Hope Abah (Makurdi), Hir Joseph (Lafia), Victor Edozie (Port Harcourt), Chris Eze (Yenagoa), Eyo Charles (Calabar), Patrick Odey (Uyo), Johnkennedy Uzoma (Owerri), Nabob Ogbonna (Abakaliki),Tony Adibe (Enugu), Bola Ojuola (Akure), Dele Ogunyemi (Ibadan), Kehinde Akinyemi (Abeokuta), Hameed Oyegbade (Osogbo), Femi Akinola (Lagos) and Beatrice Onuchukwu (Awka).}
REPORT CULLED FROM DAILY TRUST