Itse Sagay: Senators 'sucking our blood dry', says PACAC chairman

He also argued that the government should make the work of lawmakers a part time arrangement.

Chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption (PACAC), Professor Itse Sagay, has accused the country's lawmakers of sucking it dry of its resources.

He made the accusation during an interview with The Nation published on Sunday, September 24, 2017, where he also argued that the country should reevaluate its bicameral National Assembly system.

During the interview, the PACAC chairman was critical of the exorbitant allowances that lawmakers are paid, arguing that many of them are unnecessary and hurt the nation's treasury.

He said, "If you look at the allowances, Nigerians need to ask themselves questions. Should we be the ones clothing Senators? Should my tax be used in hanging Agbada on a Senator? The press has not taken it up, but this is serious.

"How many times have government provided clothes for you, and yet you're clothed? But these men who are overpaid, who are absorbing the largest share of our resources are still asking us to clothe them, as if they arrived in Abuja naked. It's not acceptable.

"These same people are collecting huge sums, claiming that they're suffering hardship by doing their job. If you go to the Senate chambers, you will see the luxurious furnishing, fully air-conditioned; you'll see staff running around, attending to every little thing they need, serving them, hand and foot; that is hardship.

"What about the man who is earning N18,000 a month, who's carrying machinery, working in a factory, cutting grass on the road, cleaning the roads, sweating with hard labour. Nobody is paying them hardship allowance. But the people are paid hardship allowance for living in tremendous luxury. They're claiming utility allowance.

"In other words, if we don’t give them money, they don't have cutlery, tablecloth, plates and saucepans. We have to provide those for them. The list goes on.

"It is criminal. It is unconscionable. It is wicked for people who are so highly privileged, who are the wealthiest people in the country to still be sucking our blood dry by collecting these things which they don't need and depriving others of them."

Sagay further suggested that the government should consider making the National Assembly a part time job as it was done during the First Republic.

He said, "If we’re going to keep the bi-cameral type of National Assembly, we must do something. And that is: We must make it part time, as we had in the First Republic. They would legislate for two months, and then everybody would go back.

"To save this country from this tremendous cost that is bending our back, we need to turn the National Assembly into part time operation, so that any member who is there is someone comfortably having a profession somewhere else.

"In those days, teachers, professors, local government chairmen, emirs and so forth, they all came. They were only paid sitting allowance and were housed. They had their professions. They were not looters who had come to make a fortune in the National Assembly.

"We must go back to that, make it part time and pay them only sitting allowances."

The PACAC chairman has been involved in a series of public spats with the National Assembly with the most recent one happening earlier in September when he claimed that every Nigerian Senator earns N29.5 million per month and N3.2 billion per annum.

In a robust response issued by the Senate, spokesperson Senator Aliyu Abdullahi referred to Sagay as "a senile, jaded, rustic and outdated Professor of Law", stating that the figures were exaggerated.