If you are an avid Twitter user then I’m sure you are wondering why the 9th Assembly is trending. Look no further because we have all the gist you need and it is as juicy as can be.
While the Assembly is still debating the possibility of 30,000 minimum wage, the newly elected senators from this year’s election are about to receive a very fat welcome check.
The 469 men who were elected into the national assembly (9th Assembly) are to get a whooping sum of N4.68 billion naira as their welcome package. The sum is apparently for their accommodation and furnishing. This means after the first time the 9th assembly sits, each member of the House of Assembly will be going home with N9.92 million. And every member of the Senate will be going home with N10. 13 million.
The idea is that each member of the Senate only gets the furnishing allowance once in 4 years. That means that a member of the House of Representatives gets N5,955,637.5 once in 4 years for furnishing his house, and a member of Senate gets N6,079,200.
They are however entitled to a yearly accommodation allowance. Members of the House of Reps will get N3, 970,425 every year for their accommodation and at the and of their 4 years will have gotten N15,881,700. Also, members of the Senate are entitled to an accommodation allowance of N4,052,800 annually. By the end of a senators 4 years, he will have gotten N16,211,200 in accommodation allowance.
All these large sums do not include their salaries and every other allowance. This means that every member of the 9th assembly will still be entitled to a salary, motor vehicle allowance, vehicle maintenance and fuelling allowance, a personal assistant, domestic staff, entertainment, newspapers, utilities, wardrobes, house maintenance, and constituency.
All of these aforementioned lists are paid for with tax-payers money (or government money, as they will like to call it). They have other perks that paid for by the government directly still.
The question now is how do we intend to move forward as a nation if we use all the money we make to pay these elite few? This people who make up 0.00024% of our population somehow share amongst themselves a large sum of money that can be used to make our general standard of living better.
As a people, it appears it is time to demand what is fair to us.