It has been found that the National Assembly members are being paid much more salaries than the recommended level by a senior level panel.

It is believed that the salaries are now higher than those recommended by the Revenue Mobilization, Allocation and Fiscal Commission for lawmakers. Engineer Hamman Tukur, a former chairman of the commission has accused the lawmakers of paying illegal salaries and allowances to themselves.

Experts say that the system allows legislators to abuse the power because they fix their own salary without due consideration to the living conditions of the people or the state of the national economy. Estimates show that 109 senators in the country take away N45 million per quarter per member.

Meanwhile, all the members of the House of Representatives, numbering 360 receive N27 million each every quarter. It is believed that this is an unfairly high level of salaries in an developing country in Africa.

Interestingly the salaries of the senators and representatives had been kept a secret and civil society organization went to court to get the authorities to reveal salaries and allowances of our senators and representatives.