BREAKING: Reps agree 50% pay cut, ask Tinubu and others to do the same
By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Members of the House of Representatives on Thursday voluntarily initiated and agreed a 50 per cent salary cut for six months, to help assuage the feelings of youths planning a mega hunger protest for 10 days from August 1, and in hopes President Bola Tinubu will take a cue from it by reducing the cost of governance rather than resort to propaganda and threats of police brutality to stop the protest.
The lawmakers asked Tinubu and others in the Executive arm to also cut their salaries to save funds for the development of critical national infrastructure rather than him keeping up with his current tone deaf aloofness and insensitivity to the suffering of ordinary Nigerians.
In the course of debating the motion for the pay cut, Speaker Tajudeen Abbas dropped hint that a House member earns N600,000 per month, light years less than the N30 million the Nigeria Labour Congress says Senators earn per month.
However, the pay cut of the House members does not include their allowances which run into millions of naira a month.
Deputy Speaker Benjamin Kalu proposed an amendment to a motion appealing to Nigerian youths sketching 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.
Kalu reminded his colleagues the House took a similar decision during the COVID-19 era and it worked very well.
When 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.
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