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Itse Sagay, a professor of law and Senior Advocate of Nigeria,
yesterday accused Nigerian lawmakers of selfish pursuits and faulted the
constitutional amendment recently carried out by the National Assembly.

Speaking at the third Michael Opeyemi Bamidele annual lecture,
Mr. Sagay, who spoke on “The status and role of the legislature in a democratic
society,” ridiculed the high salaries of legislators and their non-taxable
allowances; “the cruel anomaly of which is revealed when the per capita of
[Nigeria, UK, and USA] is juxtaposed with their parliamentary pay.”

According to him, the income per capita of US, UK, and Nigeria
are $46,350, $35,468, and $2,249 respectively; while their respective
legislative annual pay are $174,000, $64,000, and $1.7m.

The lecture is organised annually to commemorate the birthday of
Mr. Bamidele, the current commissioner for information and strategy in Lagos
state. “The legislature [at the national level at least] has jettisoned the
interest of the nation for self interest,” he said. “Instead of serving the
people of this country, they are engaged in the pursuit of self interest to a
degree that can only be described as shocking.

In 2009, federal legislators received a total of N102.8bn,
comprising N11.8bn as salaries and N90.96bn (non-taxable) as allowances. Should
five percent of Nigeria’s annual budget be spent on 109 Senators and 360 House
of Representatives members? This tragic state of affairs is clearly
unsustainable.”

Poor work on constitution

Mr. Sagay expressed despair over the constitutional amendment.
He said the real work on the amendment or alteration of the Constitution is yet
to be commenced. “From all indications, such work will not be undertaken by the
present National Assembly,” he said. “A corrupt and self seeking legislature
will not have the credibility and authority to carry out its role as the
watchdog of the people.”

He specifically listed the failure to address two main issues of
true federalism and creation of local governments as his major grievances with
the amendment exercise.

“Our National Assembly has not deemed it fit to transfer the establishment
of police forces, census, electricity generation labour matters, minimum wage
and others to the states,” he said. “But they legalise cross-carpeting and
removed the section that disqualifies people indicted by administrative panels
from contesting political offices.”

Mr. Sagay argued that the legislature is the first arm of the government in
any democratic state and should comport itself as such. “The current low esteem
with which the Nigerian legislature is held arises not from lack of legislative
primacy, but from its exhibition of negative values and practices that are
grossly against the interest if Nigeria and Nigerians,” he said.