BRASS TACKS: Yet another trap!

By Tope Oluwaleye

topeoluwaleye2@gmail.com
08023644214 (WhatsApp)

An online news report, Tuesday, of the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC)’s purported adjustment of the remuneration of the President, Vice President as well as other political and judicial officeholders by 114% (!) beggars belief at the least.

According to the report which was said to have been presented by RMAFC’s chairman, Muhammadu Shehu, the President will earn N8,013,532 monthly in contrast to his predecessor’s monthly salary of N3,514,705. It was alleged to have been presented to the Kebbi State Governor Nasir Idris by the state federal commissioner of the Commission, Rakiya Tanko Ayuba-Haruna during a courtesy visit at the Government House, Birnin Kebbi.

The last review of the remuneration which “is in line with paragraph 32(d)of Part 1 of the Third Schedule of the 1999 Constitution”, was reportedly carried out in 2007.

This columnist’s intuition tells him that this is another booby trap for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. Otherwise why should such an exercise be carried out at this point in time when removal of fuel subsidy is biting hard on the masses and a thinly-veiled resentment is brewing against Government?

The same strategy was perceived with the devastating naira redesign of Central Bank’s Emefiele and the debilitating fuel scarcity which aggravated the people’s suffering and fostered a strong resentment against the ruling APC. The warped and wicked calculation was that the party’s election candidates, especially for the Presidency, would be denied and roundly defeated at the polls. But as it is always the case, man proposed, but God disposed. Tinubu prevailed; against all odds.

Laying a glittering carpet on a well-dug pit, RMAFC recommended January 1, 2023 as the implementation date for the salary review. Of course yesterday’s power mongers must also partake of the largesse. After all, President Tinubu cannot deny them their entitlement. How insensitive can the leadership of the Commission be?

The petroleum subsidy removal is currently causing Nigerians to adjust to a life of a new normal: minimising the use of their cars and going out only when necessary or going by public transport to conserve money. This columnist was at a filling station when a lady bought fuel into her small jeep and she almost wept when she had to dispense with N46,000 to fill her tank. How regularly can she be doing that in a month, even if it was her husband who gave her the money? Season of anomie indeed!

And trust the Nigerian factor; prices of all other things also hiked along with the price of fuel. He who feels it knows where the shoe pinches.

The day following the President’s inauguration where he stated that fuel subsidy was gone, transport costs increased abnormally. Along the Lagos Ibadan corridor, a trip from Mowe to Berger in Lagos which normally cost N200/N300 jumped to N1,000 but subsequently settled at N700/N800, depending on the time.

If the President endorses the RMAFC’s new salary review, a very wrong impression of him will be engraved in the minds of the populace. Meanwhile, he is not at fault in any manner, just as he was innocent of the fuel subsidy removal which was an accomplishment of the Buhari administration. His only ‘offence’ was that he announced it without “first putting in place palliative measures”.

Coming to brass tacks, it is imperative that the high salaries of political appointees be slashed. Why should legislators and government officials be earning such humongous salaries in the full glare of poverty-ravaged citizens? Why should a public official who served just four years as governor of a state go home with such unrealistic perks of vehicles which are replaceable every few years, salary for life and so on, while a conscientious civil servant who served all his life in the public service is denied his gratuity and pension at retirement, with a good many such faithfuls dying prematurely because of lack of money which is unfortunately locked up under government bureaucracy?

Why should an elected legislator of four years be boasting online and showing off the number of cars in his garage, apparels in his wardrobe, wristwatches in his possession and shoes on his shoe racks? Why should an elected legislator come to the floor of the hallowed chamber to show off his numerous wives as if that was an achievement to be proud of. What of the weightier matters of legislation that would benefit the masses? What manner of clowns did we breed as our leaders?

Let the truth be told; if the masses are being forced to adjust downwards their lifestyle because of the policies of Government then its elected officials should be made to cut down on their opulence and at least pretend to empathise with the masses. That is, if the inspiration refuses to seep out of their senses.