Should politicians in Nigeria be paid N62,000?

You may assume that the case to place politicians on the same pay scale will be made every time a nation negotiates a minimum wage. It is a widely held belief, and the Australian Victorian Socialists Party incorporated it into their platform. Granted, they were a very new party and unlikely to succeed anyhow, much like the several political parties in Nigeria that only exist in the context of their news releases when elections are fast approaching. Nonetheless, it is a widely shared view to demand that politicians take responsibility for their actions. When US Congressmen voted in 1816 to raise their annual pay to $1500 (from a total of $900), a sizable portion of them were immediately thrown out! Such responses demonstrate how deeply people have always taken offense at their delegates’ apparent superiority over the vast majority of the people they are sworn to serve.

Congress and the Federal Government are at odds about how to adjust the pay scale. The NLC has N615,000 when it first began negotiations, which is a very ludicrous amount. They are now down to N250,000 after revising their offer to 495,000. They are being offered N62,000 by the Federal Government, however. Union leaders use the comparison between the total and politicians’ salary to support their figures during negotiations. The media has published the income breakdown of parliamentarians combined with the payslip of a well-known media assistant in an attempt to strengthen the moral credibility of their position. The workers ought to be able to raise their demands as well if they could make that much money.

Even if we are aware that our lawmakers are unlikely to ever legalize such a proposition, the conversation is still worthwhile. The political elite in Nigeria has a high income. What impact would it have if paid the minimum wage?

Proponents of the plan contend that as politicians serve as public servants, their reality need to be inextricably linked to the society they are supposed to lead. Furthermore, the desire to have a social influence rather than financial gain should be the primary motivation for entering the political field. There is some provenance to this line of reasoning. In Britain, the nation that colonized and modernized half of the world, MPs were underpaid until the 20th century. For propertied men who could afford to take occasional leave to engage in social deliberations, it was a part-time profession rather than a full-time one during those bygone days.

A number of researchers propose a relationship between the amount of money we give to politicians and the standard of government. They contend that higher compensation encourage more capable individuals to enter politics, which benefits the system. For those who adopt this stance, Singapore is the standard point of reference. With an annual salary of over $900,000, its lawmakers are officially the highest paid in the world (US representatives get about $178,000 annually). Singapore’s president makes roughly $1.7 million, while its ministers make about $1.1 million (the US president makes $400,000). Leaders in other nations, particularly in the Middle East (such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait) and Europe (such as Monaco, Norway, and Sweden), also earn enormous incomes. What is the similarity among these nations? Excellent living conditions, low levels of corruption, transparent leadership, and strong governance.

Now, correlation does not imply causation—as even a basic analyst is aware. Although greater pay have been linked to better governance in other countries, this does not always mean that higher salaries are the primary cause of excellent leadership in such nations. Nigeria is a great example of a country where leadership quality remains unchanged despite increasing wages. Actually, in Nigeria, every defense offered for paying politicians more money collapses. Politics, so the saying goes, is an elite pursuit, and if you want to attract the brightest brains in your community, you have to pay them far more than, or at least as much as, they would have made working for big, private companies. Those in positions of authority ought to have fulfilling lives in order to avoid focusing on side projects that would inevitably bring in money. The meritocracy that chooses members of such societies is still very foreign to us, so that idea does not fully work here. Powerful people often rise to positions of authority despite their lack of merit.

This explains why, with the exception of a small number, the majority of people involved in Nigerian politics belong to a group that does not even remotely reflect the caliber of minds that freely roam the country. You would never fully realize that Nigerians are intelligent individuals who perform exceptionally well in regions of the world where they are permitted to exist by looking at those who hold positions of authority. Because of the way our politics are twisted, the worst of us frequently represent the finest of us. Paradoxically, some observers point to African nations like Nigeria as examples of poor administration that result from underpaying public managers.

Legislators in Nigeria make the same amount of money as their US counterparts, but the comparison is not favorable. If you listen to our legislators discuss a topic, you will see that they are the issue and that greater pay will not be able to solve. Their “debate” about the reintroduced national anthem, for example, lacked the caliber of a newspaper stand debate where members of the Free Readers Association congregate to discuss anything from sports to global politics. The discussion leaders didn’t seem to have done any research on the topic; the majority of their remarks were made on the spot and lacked depth. I’ve seen agboolé meetings when the elderly men mediating disputes have significantly superior oratory and rhetorical abilities. The elitism that is meant to set them apart from the rest of us and support their salary is nowhere to be found, then.

They also cast doubt on the notion that politicians would turn a blind eye to bribery if they were well-paid. In this regard, Nigeria consistently defies abstract postulations. Before entering politics, Orji Uzor Kalu was not impoverished, but he was incarcerated once due to charges of corruption. His narrative is not particularly special. While in office, governors engage in rampant theft, and upon their departure, they continue to pressure legislatures to ratify their outrageously generous pensions. After that, they will proceed to steal in the Senate. No matter how much money they manage to accumulate, nothing is ever enough for them.

To be fair to them, holding public office in Nigeria encourages theft, particularly if one already has a strong moral foundation. The large number of beggars who swarm a politician’s home in search of kobo tokens—tiny tokens of survival—always hustles the politician. Public officials are pushed to steal in order to increase their income by such pressures. That does not, however, refute the claim that, in our society, both rich and poor politicians are the same kind of hustlers. When it comes to corruption, they rarely differ from one another. Raising the salary of those lacking this kind of self-awareness won’t make them more moral. Their mouths are already wide enough as it is.

If giving them more money hasn’t enabled them to carve out the intellectual and ideological space they need to grow, then giving them less money—by paying them the minimum wage, for example—won’t really change anything either. Although it is unlikely that the concept would ever become a reality, we nevertheless discuss it because it is a compelling argument that should serve as a reminder to our out-of-touch politicians to maintain perspective. It is amusing to watch people argue inanely against the idea in the current Nigerian salary negotiating atmosphere. While there is no way to pay lawmakers the minimum wage in the future, raising the issue is not wholly pointless. Such sporadic reminders are necessary for leaders who shape our lives to be, hopefully, compassionate.