“Why lawmakers should not decide their salaries” ― Obasanjo

Olusegun Obasanjo, the former president of Nigeria, has revealed why it is unconstitutional and immoral for lawmakers to decide their salaries.

Obasanjo stated this while delivering a speech at the 60th-anniversary celebration of legal icon Aare Afe Babalola’s call to the Bar held in Ado Ekiti on Monday, July 10, stating that those who should uphold the law were the ones undermining it.

He said fixing salaries for elected officials is the responsibility of the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) but lawmakers now fix salaries for themselves.

“Under paragraph 32(a-e) of Part I to the third schedule of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), the commission is saddled with determining the remuneration appropriate for political officeholders, including legislators, among other functions. The point in Nigeria which I have seen and which I can attest to is most of the people who are supposed to be operationalising or managing and seeing the constitution and democracy move forward, they are actually the ones who undermine the constitution.

“All elected people, by our constitution, their emolument is supposed to be fixed by the revenue mobilisation commission, but our lawmakers set that aside and they make laws and put any emolument for themselves. Even if that is constitutional, it is not moral and, of course, it is neither constitutional nor moral.” he said