In addition to about six media aides, the Speaker of House of Representatives, the right Honourable Femi Gbajabiamila on July 17th further announced the appointment of about 27 more aides bringing the total number of current aides to about 33. I was reliably informed that more appointments are on the way! While there is no doubt that the distinguished speaker should have aides, the problem is the number of aides and their functions in a country described as the poverty capital of the world. In the list, there is a special adviser on political matters and then a further six special assistants on the same political matters with one for each of the six geo-political zones. In addition to a Senior Legislative Aide, there are Special Assistants on Legislative Matters, Members Affairs, Policy and Inter-paliamentary affairs, Former Member Affairs, Executive Relations and also on Intergovernmental Affairs and Executive Relations. Is the Speaker now the President of the country, a concerned Irish friend asked me. No, he might be planning to be president in 2023, another friend replied on my behalf. Interestingly, as some of the positions were given to former members of the Lower Chamber, the Speaker will likely end up having over 100 aides in his fantastic stakeholders strategy of creating jobs for the boys and planning for 2023 as my friend hinted!
By the time the Senate President and other principal officers of the National Assembly finish appointing their aides, we might end up having over 1000 aides serving just about 16 individuals. When you add the aides of the remaining 101 senators and 352 members of the house of representatives, you can imagine the number of aides serving our national assembly members. According to BudgIT, while the total severance package for the 109 senators of the 8th Assembly was about N666, 854,627.5, that of the 360 House of Representaives totalled about N2, 145,505,013. Adding the two gives us about N3 billion (three billion naira). Like many other Nigerians, I lamented on reading the amount used for severance package of the 8th assembly until a friend sent me the breakdown of the 9th Assembly budget especially the amount allocated to welcome the new members. While N4.68 billion is budgeted as ‘Welcome Package’ for new members, about N16.21 billion is allocated, among other things, but essentially for induction and inauguration of the 9th National Assembly. Adding the figures above for severance pay, welcome package and induction/inauguration gives a total of about N23.7 Billion. This is a country that is significantly living on debts with over N24.4 trillion of national debt mainly borrowed within the last four years of PMB’s administration. An economy with over 22 million unemployed people using almost 50 kobo of every one naira it generates to service her increasing and highly unsustainable debts. Who really bewitched Nigeria!
A serious problem with Nigeria is that it is difficult to know who our role models are in some of our lamentable behaviours. Even when you think that things will get better with some people in authority, it actually gets worse. As we adopted the American presidential system and having lived in the United States of America and as a Lawyer, it is expected that Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila should know better and be different. Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives has about 15 aides with seven of them providing most of the legislative functions. For instance, while Patty Ross is the legislative assistant in eight different areas, Sarah Swig is in charge in 21 areas including trade/commerce, education, telecommunication, elections, energy and many more. The Chief of Staff, Robert Edmonson in addition to his enormous duties as the chief of staff also acts as the legislative assistant in three areas- Budget, Appropriation and Transportation. If Nanci Pelosi can effectively function as the speaker of the US House of Repsentative with about 15 aides, it is difficult to understand what our most distinguished speaker Femi Gbajabiamila is doing with over 30 aides. Moreover, Femi is a veteran of assembly affairs having being in the House of Representative since 2003. Productivity is not really in the number of aides but in the commitment and patriotism to serve for the common good.
As we have more people that serve not for the common good but for their own interests, our debts will keep rising while our productivity keep declining. It is the reason why we are using about N6.21 trillion from our total revenue of about N7 trillion for recurrent expenditure and debt servicing according to the 2019 approved budget. Of the three key components in a budget of about N8.92 trillion, consumption in the name of recurrent expenditure takes the lion share of N4.07trillion while debt service takes the second position with N2.14 trillion and capital expenditure the lowest with only N2.09 trillion. Moreover, as our total revenue is about N7 trillion, we have to further borrow about N2 trillion more to most likely pay the numerous aides of the Speaker and other politicians. If we are genuinely committed to a more productive and better Nigeria, a patriotic expectation of the Senate President and the Speaker is to initiate and ensure that legislative tasks becomes a part-time job. This will save Nigeria billions of Naira that can be used to provide most needed infrastructure.
Franklin Ngwu
Dr. Ngwu is a Senior Lecturer in Strategy, Finance and Risk Management, Lagos Business School and a Member, Expert Network, World Economic Forum.
