Due to the growing agitation in the country over economic hard and the need for elected officers to cut down salary, members of the House of Representatives on Thursday agreed to cut their salary by 50 per cent.
This is part of efforts by the lawmaker salary cut in their to placate youths planning a nationwide protest for 10 days from August 1.
This followed the adoption of an amendment to a motion’s prayer moved by the Deputy Speaker of the House, Benjamin Okezie Kalu, on the need for lawmakers to sacrifice 50% of their N600,000 monthly salaries to support Nigerians in view of the hardship in the land.
In a motion, Kalu appealed to Nigerian youths planning the protest against the hardship and hunger in the country, saying members should consider sacrificing 50 per cent of their pay to help tackle the problem.
He reminded his colleagues the House took a similar decision during the COVID-19 era and it worked very well.
Kalu’s amended prayer was to a motion by Rep Isiaka Ayokunle calling on proponents of the planned nationwide protests to jettison the idea and engage the government in dialogue.
The deputy Speaker said the salary cut is to be used to support federal government’s efforts to address rising cost of food stuffs in the country with the view to ameliorating the hardship Nigerians are going through.
By this singular action, members of the green chamber numbering 360 will be sacrificing N108m representing 30 percent of their salaries for six months.
When Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tajudeen Abbas put the motion to a voice vote, the majority of members voted in favour of it.
Abbas commended them for their resolve to sacrifice half of their salaries to address hunger, and some members asked Tinubu and the entire Executive arm to also make sacrifices in line with what the lawmakers have done
This can only happen in Nigeria. The allowances needs to be reviewed downward by 50% and not the basic of #600,000.00
This is quite unfortunate