No political official or judge in Nigeria receives a big salary, according to Mohammed Bello Shehu, Chairman of the Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC).
The Federal Republic of Nigeria’s RMAFC is a department that is in charge of managing the distribution of funds from the Federation Account that go to the government.
The organization also makes sure that the system for allocating the country’s tax money is uniform and equitable.
The pay of the president, the senate president, and other political office holders must be fixed and determined by the commission.
President Muhammadu Buhari does not make more than N1.2 million per month, while the Senate President does not make more than N1 million, according to Shehu in an interview with The Sun.
The RMAFC chairman revealed that there are around 17 separate wage categories regarding pay inequalities in government-owned organizations.
He said:
“There could be more. Disparity between a staff in CBN and in the ministry and various differences like that is not the responsibility of the Commission, but I can raise that as an issue which I have been doing and I feel that it is time for the stakeholders to take a look at this so that in such a disparity there can be some levels of harmonisation.
“If it is because of special skills the difference is not going to be that too wide which leaves a lot of room for corruption and other vices. And I have said also and I still stand by it that there should not be any public servant in Nigeria that will earn a salary more than the president of Nigeria.”
“Even after he served as a political appointee for four, five or eight years that he shouldn’t get a severance package that is like 50, 60 or 100 times more than that of the president. That is my opinion and I stand by it anytime, any day,”
Shehu continued by saying that no one in judicial or political office in Nigeria receives a huge salary.
He said:
“I have said it in public that the salary of the president is not more than N1.2 million a month and nobody earns higher than that not even the Chief Justice of the Federation or the Senate President.
“The salary of a minister after removing taxes is slightly under N1 million a month. This was from 2018 to date and you know some people will like to bring this issue up on the salaries of other workers that are not political appointees but in reality between 2008 to date how many times have the salaries of workers been reviewed? Many times.
“In 2008 I believe the minimum wage was around N5,000 but what is it today? So, there has been a lot of changes and like I said the commission is not responsible for that.”
