Transform-Nigeria#: Comparism of the Salaries of Politicians vis-à-vis other Professions in the US and Nigeria

Effective from January 1, 2001, the annual salary of the president of the United States was doubled to $400,000 (N60m) per year, including a $50,000 expense allowance making the president the highest paid public servant. The $400,000 includes everything and $350,000 out of it is taxable.
Below is a table of the earnings of some politicians in the US:
Public Officers Earning per year ($) Earning per year Naira (million)
President 400000.00 60.0
V. President 227300.00 34.1
Speaker of the House 223500.00 33.5
Majority Leader (Senate) $193,400 29.1
Minority Leader (Senate) $193,400 29.1
Other Senators 174000.00 26.1
Majority Leader (Representative) $193,400 29.1
Minority Leader (Representative) $193,400 29.1
Cabinet Secretary $193,400 29.1
* Exchange rate is set at $1.00 = N150.00
*Please note that US Vice President is also the Senate president.
Below is a table showing some of the items in the new (reduced) package for the members of the Nigeria National Assembly:
Items Senator (N) Representative( N)
Basic salary/Regular allowances 11,145,200 9,926,062
Furniture 3,039,600 2,744,454
Motor Vehicle Loan 5,066,000 4,963,031
Duty Tour Allowance per day 23,000 21,000
Severance Gratuity 6,079,200 5,955,637
Estacodes $600 $550
Other allowances expressed as percentages of basic salaries are:
Hardship Allowance @ 50%
Constituency allowance @ 200%
Newspaper allowance @ 50%
Wardrobe allowance @ 25%
Recess Allowance @ 10%
Accommodation @ 200%
Utilities @ 30%
Domestic Staff @ 75%
Entertainment @ 30%
Personal Assistance @ 25%
Vehicle Maintenance Allowance @ 75%
Leave Allowance @10%
Analysis
This analyses translate to the fact that in addition to the regular and legitimate salaries and allowances of N17 million ($113,333) and N14.99 million ($99,933) which senators and reps were collecting yearly and the irregular allowance of estacodes, duty tours etc, they were also collecting N192m ($1.28m) and N140m ($0.93m) respectively in illicit quarterly allocation which is not provided for by RMAFC.
Effectively, a Nigerian senator was taking home at least $1.40m ($1.28m quarterly allocations + $0.113m regular salaries and allowances) as against the $0.174m an American senator takes home hence a Nigeria senator earns at least 8 times as much as an American senator and more than 3 times the American president.
Whereas a Senator in the U.S earns N21, 146,000, the same as a member of the House of Representatives; a UK Member of Parliament earn £64,766 (N14, 896,180)
In other words, a Federal Legislator in Nigeria is paid more than double what a Member of British Parliament earns per annum.
Senate President David Mark alone takes N250 million quarterly or N83.33 million per month. Senate Deputy President Ike Ekweremadu gets N150 million per quarter or N50 million a month.
Mark and Ekweremadu earns in 4 months, six times what the UK Prime Minister earns in a year. David Cameron goes home with £190,000 per anum (N43, 700,000)
In a Next newspaper news article entitled ‘An Assembly for looting’ written by Musikilu Mojeed with Elor Nkereuwem, the authors rightly claimed that each of the 360 members of the House of Representatives were getting N35 million in cash money in quarterly allocation while each of the 109 Senators pockets N48 million each. These allocations have however been slashed by 20% to N27 million ($180,000) and N38 million ($253,333) respectively due to the 20% reduction requested by the late president.
The cut has been a source of a major controversy in the House of Representatives in the past few days where members are agitating to jerk up the sum to N42m quarterly at a time when the government is lamenting being broke and when the already signed 2010 budget is being cut by as much as 40%. What a bunch of greedy inhuman lots! The discordance has caused members of the House to force the speaker, Dimeji Bankole to reduce his quarterly allowance from N140m ($933,333) to N100m ($666,667) or from an annual allowance of N560m ($3.73m) to N400m ($2.67m).
According to data obtained from CIA World Factbook, Nigeria has an estimated per capital income (purchasing power parity) of $2,400 in 2009 as against USA’s $46,400. This means that the average earning in the US is 19.33 times as much as in Nigerian.
With the reduced salary package, a Nigeria senator still get paid N11 million ($73,333) in regular salaries and allowances annually and N152m ($1.03m) in four (quarterly) allocation making a total of $1.11m plus irregular allowances like estacodes and duty tour allowances.
The Senate has allocated N1, 024,000,000 as quarterly allowance to its 10 principal officers, known collectively as the Senate leadership - Each of the eight other principal officers take home N78 million every three months or N26 million per month.
Besides, for this year, the Senate has voted N2.6 billion for local travel, N2.45 billion (foreign travel), N1.25 million (security), N2.28 billion (contingency) , N750 million (guest houses for Mark and Ekweremadu), and N500 million (establishment of radio and television stations).
The Executive Branch of government
A Nigerian Minister is paid N31,915,800 (32 million) per year, comprising salary (2,026,400), and benefits plus allowances (N29,889,400) ...American secretary (N23,488,000) ; British Secretary (N29,736,000) German Minister (N30,287,667. 20)."
A Nigeria Minister of State gets N30, 538,248 (salary N1, 957,580; allowances N28, 580,666) higher than those of a South African Minister (N7, 704,558);
Compare again to American secretary (N23, 488,000); British Secretary (N29, 736,000) German Minister (N30, 287,667.20)
A local government councillor in Nigeria earn over N1 million per month while a university professor, or a director in a ministry is paid peanuts as take home.
The salary review of political office holders till date revealed that 17,474 officials earned N1.12 trillion yearly of the N1.12 trillion about N94, 959,545,401. 20 billion is spent on salaries and N1, 031,654,689, 033.18 trillion goes to allowances annually.
While 16,540 out of the political officeholders, as revealed from the document emanating from the Presidency to the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) are expected to undergo a pay cut in line with former President Yar’adua’s proposal earlier in the year, this is yet to take effect.
The officers are: Federal Executive (472); Federal Legislature (1,152); Local Government Executive (3,096) and local government legislature (8,692).
According to the document, officers taken this large lump sum evidently, approximately 17,500 officials only constitute 0.014 per cent (less than a quarter of a percent) of Nigeria’s estimated 140 million people.
Again, it is common knowledge that the salaries of these officers amount to nothing compared to the juicy fringe benefits that accrue to them.
It could be recalled that ministers, advisers, legislators salaries were all jerked up in 2007 and 2008. While the members of National Assembly got 100% pay rise which would cost Nigerian tax payers N52.4 billion every year, and an additional N15.02 billion as multi-purpose allowances given to the lawmakers on quarterly basis, the package accruing to the federal executives had jumped by over 1,000 percent to N98 billion due to their allowances as compared N65.5 billion paid the federal executives during the last regime.
The last time Nigerian workers ever had an enhanced salary package was in 2000 when former President Olusegun Obasanjo announced the N5, 500 and N7, 500 minimum wages both for state and federal workers respectively.
Comparison of the Salaries of Politicians vis-a-vis other professions in USA and Nigeria
The politicians’ salaries listed above might look big to you but if you look at what is obtainable in the society, you’ll surely get the drift. I’d like to compare the earning of these top political positions with those of surgeons in America.
According to ehow.com, several factors such as experience, employer, location, gender and degrees may affect the earnings of a heart surgeon. Salaries discussed here are median earnings from 2009.
• Degree: A cardiac surgeon with a Doctor of Medicine (M.D.) degree will earn an average yearly salary of $292,774. If he has completed a Ph.D., however, the annual salary may rise to $400,000 on average.
It can be inferred from this that a surgeon earn as much as the president or even more. And in nearly all cases a surgeon earns more than the VP and other public office holders.
In the US, top attorneys in a top legal firm earn as much as $500,000 annually, a top journalist (like Christiane Amanpour) earns over a $1m, Wall street guys and top business executives earn $ millions in salaries, benefit, stock options etc. Top Sportsmen and Entertainers earn tens of $ million in salaries, endorsements, advertisements, profit sharing etc. Top CEOs also earn tens and in exceptional cases, hundreds of $ million in salaries, benefit, stock options and profit sharing.
If you consider the fact that many top politicians were also top earners before joining politics, you’d be able to understand the sacrifice intended.
The annual salary of the Surgeon General is about $190,000.
It’s a known fact Michelle Obama, the US first lady was earning much more as a hospital administrator in Chicago than her husband, President Barack Obama was earning as a US senator. According to the couple’s 2006 income tax return, her salary was $273,618 from the University of Chicago Hospitals as Vice President for Community and External Affairs, while her husband had a salary of $157,082 from the United States Senate.
In Nigeria, political offices are often seen as a get-rich-quick avenue because the legitimate salaries and benefits are enormous and are probably unobtainable elsewhere in the system. Another reason is that politicians can also meddle with the public funds with impunity. Candidly, public officers do not differentiate between public and private funds and this is probably the main cause of the do-or-die politics. All arms of government collaborate in the looting causing no checks and balances.
After the late former president Umaru Yar’Adua complained about the nation's dwindling revenues and that politicians were being overpaid and causing his government a financial stress, there was an approved reduced remunerative package for the politicians. Based on the this, each of the 107 senators (excluding the Senate President and his deputy) would be collecting N11 million ($73,333) in basic salaries and regular allowances every year while a member of the House of Representatives would get N9.9 million ($66,000). Previously, a senator was getting N17 million ($113,333) while a House member was collecting N14.99 million ($99,933).
The regular allowances are accommodation, car maintenance, domestic staff, personal assistant, entertainment, leave, utilities, newspaper/periodica ls and constituency. These figures do not include non-regular allowances-- vehicle loan, furniture allowance, estacodes, and duty tour allowance and severance gratuity--which are paid separately to each legislator as they become due.
From a previous salary of about N10,000, a police constable now earns between N22,000 and N27,000 depending on his length of service and accommodation plan, while a sergeant’s pay has gone up from N15,000 to about N30,000. And from a pay slip of about N22,000, a Police inspector now earns at least N50,000 monthly.
Let me give an insight of the monthly salary of Nigerian police officers:
Constable = N22, 000 (£98) - N27, 000 (£120.27)
Corporal = N27, 000 (£120.27) - N28, 000 (£124.73)
Sergeant = N31, 000 (£138.09)
Inspector = N50, 000 (£222.72) - N52, 000 (£231.63)
Assistant Superintendent of Police = N80, 000 (£ 356.36) - N83, 000(£369.72) depending on whether he is a one-star ASP or two-star ASP.
A deputy Superintendent of Police = N90, 000 (£400.90)
A full superintendent = N100, 000 (£445.45)
In some states, while the state government claims not to have money to pay workers, it finds it convenient to pay politicians hundreds of thousands as monthly salary for doing practically nothing than looting the state blind. How can a state government justify the over N300, 000 salary paid to a ward councilor (and over N60, 000 to a councilor’s wife) while the highest paid teachers collects less than 30 percent and the least paid teacher collects less than 4 percent of a councilor’s pay. The total annual salaries of councilors in a state like Osun State (running to over N1.4 billion) are enough to employ 2240 workers on N50, 000 monthly salaries. This is pure robbery!
Yet, they reject the payment of N52, 200 minimum wages that the national leadership of NLC and TUC are fighting for.
Other Illegalities
Of all these allowances, the most intriguing is the constituency allowance. What is constituency allowance? You may ask. It is an allowance approved by Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC). The constituency allowance as approved by RMAFC is supposed to be 200% of the basic salary for politician but in reality, they are paid far more than that. The major flaw of this allowance is that the law does not require the politicians to file reports of how the money is spent.
The executives are not left behind, infact, the legislative plunder is like a child’s play compared to what the executives are illegally taking away from the system.
In addition to their constituency allowances, It is no longer a news that governors collect billions of naira as security votes which are unaccounted for and which makes everyone wonder which security are they providing with the money.
According to Davidson Iriekpen in an article titled, Security Vote - for Whose Security? “Every year, billions of naira is allegedly squandered under the guise of security votes. The funds suspected to be illegal, are purportedly being used to provide security for the president, governors and their domains, whereas they are being transferred into personal bank accounts. In spite of these huge sums of money, killings, kidnappings, cultism and other security threats are on the increase across the states. At the federal level, funds are allocated to the Ministry of Defense for the upkeep and welfare of the armed forces and the police, yet billions are still voted for the President as security votes whose impact is unknown.”
Many of the governors appropriate the sum ranging from several hundreds of millions of naira to billions monthly as security vote. And also according to human rights lawyer, Bamidele Aturu, security vote is an illegality and irresponsibility on the part of the country's leaders. He condemned the governors for appropriating security votes to them even when they know that it is unconstitutional. He also argued that the governors who indulge in security votes rob the society of essential resources.
In a report by RMAFC chairman, Hamman Tukur to the presidency, "He said the Federal, State and Local Governments flout the remuneration provisions made by the commission through frivolous foreign trips, arbitrary appointment of aides and use of excessively large motorcades.
He further said “based on the constitution, RMAFC has the final say on the remuneration package of National Assembly and State Houses of Assembly members, while a law need to be enacted based on the commission's proposals regarding the pay packages of executive and judicial office holders.”
Notwithstanding this warning, this illegality thrives from the presidency to the council. As the president takes billions of naira in monthly security vote, he also takes several millions in constituency allowance.
Conclusion
Past surveys of salaries and benefits of public office holders from the Baltic to the Bahamas, the Americas and the Far East and everywhere else, has showed that Ministers and Federal Legislators in Nigeria are the highest paid in the world, despite the country being among the poorest in terms of per capita income, security, social provision and living standards. On the other hand, Nigerian workers are one of the lowest paid in the world.
The Nigerian Minister earns more than his American, British or German counterpart, and of course enjoys pecks of office those ones cannot even dare dream of - for doing next to NOTHING!!!
Likewise a Senator and his House of Representatives counterpart in Nigeria receive much more than their contemporaries elsewhere.
Do you know even any local government Chairman in Nigeria who does not own houses and fleet of cars?
Nigeria is a relatively poor country and there is no justification for a Nigerian politician earning much more than his American counterpart while others in other callings earn a fraction of what is obtainable in the US.
I think it’s about time we work out a ceiling system for the remunerations of public servants and tie them to what is obtainable in certain professions. And until we get this right, our politics will continue to be a do-or-die affair with the greedy lots dominating the air as their only attractions are the perks of the offices

Lessons for Nigerian Pastors from Rick Warren

Interesting interview. But it will be useful to always provide a time frame for such interviews so that one can put it in context. Warren is someone I respect and admire. What was not said in the interview is that he keeps 10% of his earnings from the book and give away 90% because he just does not want wealth and power to control him or intoxicate him. Journalist investigated and verified this.

The lesson here is for some in this forum attending some churches in Nigeria to draw ethical lessons here and use it to interrogate the social ethics of your ministers. With all the Christianity spreading in Africa, you find too much talk about wealth or signs and wonders. Warren will not see sign and wonders in the sense of the healing of his wife but he remains faithful. He has not allowed wealth to be the measure of God working in his life as is the case with some of the ministers in Nigeria who are overly concerned about structures and buying private jets. There is so much distortion of the Bible. For them, wealth is an indication of God working. They do things in excess but they give it a different packaging. Yet, pagan philosophers like Plato have discussed the importance of temperance as a virtue since BC period. In Christianity, some people call it contentment or moderation. Not that you should not live a good life, but what is the role of moderation?

If Jesus had the power to do everything to glorify himself, why did he walk as an ordinary peasant across Galilee? He lived like ordinary people. There is a whole problem with the way many Christians are reading the Bible. There is an anomaly in how Churches are mushrooming in Africa but corruption and wickedness of human beings against human beings is increasing. Obviously, if you look at the most Christian state in Nigeria and count the number of churches built and the number of people attending churches now compared to thirty or forty years ago, you will say there are more now than before. Then look at the social indicators in the society that are supposed to be directly impacted by Christian social ethics and evaluate whether there is any systematic change. Actually the social indicators have worsened.

I will argue that this is true with the Islamic religion in Nigeria. Shariah is supposed to mean a move closer to God, but corruption continuous. Do not be misled that all these Muslim elites who believe in Shariah are truly governing in the interest of the ordinary citizen. Northern Nigeria will continue in poverty with Shariah while many societies without shariah who do the right thing will get out of poverty faster. Most of the Islamic elites at the helm of affairs do not even recognize the simple Islamic concept of "AMANAH." Who would read the life of Caliph Umar and still think that these Muslim elites who espouse Islamic values are trying be more pious. Caliph Umar was a very simple man. If they would govern like Umar, things would change. I am sick and tired of the hypocrisy. Anyone can claim to be religious but the question of what is the social consequences of his or her religious beliefs are on culture, society, human interaction, ethics, etc, is an empirical question that anyone with sufficient training can evaluate. Just tell me your beliefs and once we agree what they are, I can evaluate the extent they have consequences on your life. So Rick Warren is a lesson to all those ministers in Nigeria that are more difficult to reach and it will be easier to reach Jesus if he was around given what we have read about how even poor sick women can be close to him and touch him without being chased away. Most Nigerian ministers in some of those denominations are drunk with power in the name of anointing. They start in humble ways and preach humility but their modus-operandi does not suggest humility. And most Nigerians study the Bible or are Christians without appreciating what its true history is.

But I have other observations:

a) On the question of the future of humanity. Christianity came out of Judaism and in this case there is a significant difference between how Judaism and Christianity in terms of their view of the meaning of life here and hereafter. The interesting thing here is Christians took the scriptures of Judaism and then claim that they know better than the believers of Judaism. Will Christians today be happy if someone took their religion and then told them that they got it wrong. Judaism believes that life here should be lived to the fullest meaning and not just be treated as unimportant because of heaven; it should not just be treated as an anomaly. If heaven is better than here as one person said, we should all go and hung ourselves to rush there. Moreover, certain positions on eschatology (e.g., dispensationalism) affects the commitment of Christians to fighting for social justice here, because they expect things to get worse here before Christ returns.

b) The question of life after death is not unique to Christianity. Just read Plato's APOLOGY and see how Socrates after his trial and before his death was contemplating on that. It is truly amazing to read that and this was in the BC period. Often we think that only Christianity prepares people about this. I am a Christian and a member of a Pentecostal Church (a different kind of Pentecostal than the one that is anti-intellectual like fundamentalist), but I think it is naive to think that way. Human beings have tried to answer the question of the divine in different ways and given the diversity of the world, it is going to be impossible for all of us to answer it in the same way. Even when we are Christians or Muslims, the social-historical context and our existential realities shape how we practice our faith. Travel across the world and you will see great variation in Islam and Christianity. My profound encounter with this was when I did my fieldwork research in Malaysia. Unfortunately some people practice their faith without capacity or the courage for reflexivity i.e., reflect on themselves as mortal human beings living in time and space.

c) IN the past, human beings could live for hundreds of years and it was alright. But it is impossible for us today to have most people live up to one hundred years because we have become so greedy and consume too much. WE will spend more money on maintaining the elderly unless if you discover through stem cell research how to make humans eternal. But who would like to live forever? I do not thing the current generation are willing to make the necessary sacrifices so that things will go round for everyone. If we will prolong people's lives, we will have to change our idea of property ownership and consumption. If prayers by religious people in Nigeria prolong people's life, but the religious elites continue to extract resources from the public but never focus on liberating the poor spiritually and materially, it will be a nightmare. Think about that. If people behave like Warren, that would be a different thing.

d) Many religious people believe in God but for a religious studies scholar, that is just a starting point. The meaning of what God really is vary among people even attending the same church. Often most Christians embrace capitalism but capitalism sort people out based on social classes and your social class affects your existential experience and how you read the Bible. No one reads his or her holy book in social vacuum. You cannot live in Appalachia in the U.S. and read the Bible the same way that someone in the Kennedy families would because your existential experience s are different. The people of Israel at one point thought Yahweh was in Jerusalem in the Holy of Holies. In Egypt they thought they had their own and Egyptians had their own God. Monotheism had not developed solidly then. It was when they were in captivity and a new understanding of God came that their God was not just their God but he is also controlling Babylonians. Human existential experience change their understanding of God. It is the same thing with us today. I myself, feel that if Nigerians have a deeper understanding of God, we cannot have the kind dehumanization of people because of their ethnicity, religion, or social class. I grew up in that culture but I now feel like going back to apologize to many of my classmates for ethnic jokes that were disrespectful. It is something I deeply regret. I also regret how I treated some of my female friends. I want to apologize to them too.

e) Heaven. Most religious people tend to think that God is up in the sky. But this contradicts their affirmation that God is Spirit and so he is not in one place but everywhere. He is not a physical being because that would mean he has a race, he has a gender, or is limited in space and time. God is spirit so that is why you cannot confine him him to a place or time. If this is the case, then no one knows exactly where heaven is, assuming this is where God lives. It is not like when people die, their soul goes up and crosses the sky to meet God. That treats God, as someone living a heavenly "White House" or paradise that is physically limited. This is a mystery as far as I know. I have seen scholars interviewed on camera on this. To this day, humans try to describe heaven in language that is just a reflection of their own existence here because they have no other way as human beings to talk about heaven. And often we describe heaven in terms of things here that we want and desire or consider perfect but cannot afford. Some think they will have golden streets there, they will have women with great breasts, or they can have sex. There will be no death, no pain etc. But these are all things that human desire here but cannot afford for so many reasons. Moreover, if people are going to resurrect, in what form are they going to do so? Will I resurrect in my youthful person which was part of me, my middle age person, or elderly person? Human beings have no one living experience in their life course. No one has a clear answer to these question.

f) Some say we will have our memory in heaven. This needs to be examined. If I can remember how I had to suffer in the past, I will still have the pain. So exactly what does it mean to have that memory.

Warren is a very humble person and I wish Nigerian ministers learn from him and give 90% of everything they own and keep the 10%.

Samuel
Department of Anthropology, Sociology & Reconciliation Studies
Bethel University,
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