Nigeria continues to wander through the thickets of economic struggle, its path obscured like a hunter in dense bush armed with hope but lacking a cutlass.
Unemployment casts a shadow long enough to block the midday sun, inflation bites harder than the harmattan wind cutting through worn fabric, and infrastructure roads, power, and water crumble like a termite-eaten granary wall, threatening to collapse under its neglect.
Once heralded as a golden ticket, oil has now become a trickster spirit, offering wealth with one hand and instability with the other. Its volatility has left Nigeria’s economic foundation as steady as a canoe on turbulent waters drifting with the whims of global prices, but anchored to none.
Against this backdrop of hardship and scarcity, the sumptuous perks and padded pockets of Nigeria’s National Assembly members glisten like gold in a beggar’s market. While the average citizen queues for fuel, scours for jobs, and stretches meagre earnings past breaking point, lawmakers seem to feast at a banquet inside a collapsing hut. It is a paradox that gnaws at the national conscience, a tale of two Nigerias, told in salaries and suffering.
As the Yoruba warn,
“The rat that makes merry in the open while its house is on fire is courting ashes.”
When leadership reveals while the land weeps, it is not governance, it is performance on a sinking stage.
Financial Compensation of Assembly Members
Members of Nigeria’s National Assembly receive salaries and allowances that set them high above the average citizen, like an eagle perched beyond reach on an iroko branch. A senator earns over NGN 12 million annually in base salary, while members of the House of Representatives earn slightly less. However, these figures tell only part of the story.
Layered onto this are allowances for accommodation, vehicle maintenance, travel, and constituency projects, an entire yam barn added to an already full basket. These benefits stretch their total earnings far beyond the imagination of most Nigerians, whose daily income barely covers a meal of garri and groundnuts.
With a minimum wage of NGN 30,000 per month, the gulf between the Assembly and the people is not just wide, it is a ravine. A senator earns over 300 times the minimum wage, a disparity that makes the average worker feel like an ant trying to converse with an elephant.
Additional Perks and Privileges
Beyond monetary compensation, lawmakers enjoy access to state-sponsored healthcare, personal security, official residences, and generous travel allowances. These non-monetary perks serve as a cloak of privilege, insulating them from the harsh winds that buffet the lives of everyday Nigerians.
For the average citizen, who must navigate potholed roads, endure power outages, and queue at under-equipped hospitals, such privileges evoke the image of a farmer watching his neighbour eat pounded yam. At the same time, he stirs his pot of empty promises.
International Benchmarking
Compared to other countries, Nigeria’s lawmakers stand among the highest-paid relative to their nation’s economic strength. In the United States, a member of Congress earns USD 174,000 annually; in the UK, an MP earns around GBP 82,000. Yet both nations maintain robust economies and higher standards of living.
In Nigeria, where many live from hand to mouth, such compensation feels like pouring honey on an anthill, attracting scrutiny, suspicion, and eventually, social unrest.
Economic Hardships in Nigeria
The nation’s economic indicators tell a story as dry as a riverbed in drought season. GDP growth has been tepid, stifled by an overdependence on oil and a lack of economic diversification. Youth unemployment now looms above 40%, and inflation continues to erode purchasing power like acid rain on a tin roof.
Poverty, like a stubborn weed, has taken root in every region, with over 40% of Nigerians living below the poverty line. The cost of living rises daily, dragging household budgets behind it like a reluctant goat on a short leash.
State of Public Services and Infrastructure
Nigeria’s public services often feel like a market without traders, despite the name, but hollow in substance. The healthcare sector is chronically underfunded. Hospitals are ill-equipped, staff are overworked or underpaid, and many Nigerians die waiting for care that never arrives.
Education, too, is in dire straits. Overcrowded classrooms, lack of facilities, and frequent teacher strikes have left the nation’s youth clutching empty satchels where books should be.
Infrastructure, from roads to power supply to clean water, remains inadequate. In many areas, life trudges on like a donkey through a dusty path, slowed by inefficiency and neglect.
Nigeria’s budget often favours the feeding of fat cats over the funding of public goods. Recurrent expenditures, such as salaries and allowances for political officeholders, dominate the budget, leaving capital investments starved of sustenance.
This skewed allocation turns development into a form without wheels, yet it remains incapable of motion.
Across newspapers, radio stations, and social media, the voices of the people rise like the chorus of a village durbar. They are calling for fairness, for restraint, and for a system that doesn’t reward silence with gold while punishing service with suffering.
Opinion polls and civic reports consistently show that Nigerians view their legislators as overcompensated and under-accountable. Public figures and civil society organisations echo these sentiments, urging reforms and accountability.
The Symbolism of Excess
In a country where citizens walk miles for clean water while lawmakers fly business class to routine functions, disparity morphs into disenchantment. The high compensation of legislators has become symbolic of systemic rot, like a single fly in the soup that spoils the whole pot.
These symbols provoke not just anger, but action: from street protests in Lagos to hashtags that trend for days, the nation’s conscience is stirring.
Once lost, people’s trust is not easily regained, just as the calabash that breaks during a dance cannot be repaired with song. When citizens feel their leaders live in another reality, governance suffers. Civic engagement wanes, elections become rituals rather than hope, and resentment becomes the only currency in circulation.
The more distant legislators are from the people they serve, the more brittle the bonds that hold democracy together.
Consequences for Political Stability
Unchecked frustration is a ticking gourd, swelling with the pressure of unmet needs. If not addressed, the issue of excessive legislative compensation could deepen the cracks in Nigeria’s fragile political structure. Disillusionment breeds apathy; apathy breeds unrest.
Protests, boycotts, and a cynical electorate may become the norm if leadership continues to ignore the warning signs etched clearly on the wall like charcoal on white clay.
Nigeria’s journey toward equitable governance must begin with honest reflection and a willingness to balance privilege with purpose. Leadership is not about eating while others starve; it is about ensuring that no child goes to bed hungry, that no parent must choose between medicine and school fees.
As the Igbo say,
“A man who brings home ant infested firewood should not complain when lizards pay him a visit.”
The National Assembly must either embrace reform or prepare for the reckoning that follows continued excess in the face of poverty.
