people who think our legislators are the worst in terms of their desire for primitive accumulation and ostentatious lifestyle will tender unreserved apologies to them when they see what their Kenyan counterparts earn, and are still yearning earnestly for more. As a matter of fact, I now believe that truly, it is one who has not travelled far that does not see squirrels with hunchback; if one travels far, he is likely to see ants that are lame.
That exactly was the impression I got on reading the story of Kenyan lawmakers who want extraordinary end-of-term bonuses and other mouth-watering pleasures. They want their bonuses tripled; they want diplomatic passports for themselves and their spouses, bodyguards for life, of course paid for by taxpayers; they also want State burial for themselves when they die, a thing reserved only for their president and notable achievers. Thank God the legislators have President Mwai Kibaki to contend with. At least twice in three months had the legislators made the demand, and twice had Kibaki turned them down.
And, as if to prove that they were actually being driven by what a newspaper called ‘eccentric greed’, the lawmakers, in their lack of regard for time and space, did not even care that they were repeating the demands in their last act before the parliament closed for the March 4 elections. One would have thought they would have been mindful of the coming polls, and at least pretended as if they cared about reelection or the people more than they did about themselves; but they didn’t. “But even the most cynical among us would not have bet on the lawmakers sticking their hands in the public pocket on the last day in office … one would have expected that politicians facing an election would have had the decency to exit without creating a ruckus”, the Standard Newspaper said on January 12. If the Kenyan lawmakers’ prayers had been answered, the taxpayer would have incurred an extra cost of two billion shillings to pay the higher bonuses alone, to people considered by the electorate as already overpaid, lazy and corrupt. As a matter of fact, Kenya’s lawmakers are seen as among the best paid in the world.
I know Nigerians are very clever; (most of them now take Panasharp) they would therefore want to remind me that $107,200, the end-of-term bonus being demanded by the Kenyan lawmakers (about N17,152, 000) is only a fraction of what our National Assembly members take for Constituency Project; that is true. But you can only see the sense in my point when you note a few things about Kenya. Kenya’s lawmakers earn about $13,000 (N2, 080, 000) a month, the bulk in tax-free allowances. This may look small, but is no doubt huge in a country where an unskilled urban labourer may earn as little as $60 (N9,600) a month, and with a per capita GDP of $800. In 2011, the legislators refused to pay back taxes demanded by the government, then bought new seats, worth $2,400 (N384,000) each, for the members in the chamber. For a country facing a ballooning wage bill to meet pay raises for teachers and doctors, and at a time when economic growth has slowed and unemployment remains uncomfortably high, this is simply outrageous.
So, when compared to their Kenyan counterparts, we will see that our own National Assembly members only want to be spoilt a little, unlike their counterparts in Kenya who want to be spoilt big, irrespective of whether their pleasure would amount to pain for the average Kenyan. I will give you just one example to prove that our legislators here care about how they spend public funds in a way that it won’t tear the people’s pockets. Just a few weeks back during the unnecessary debate on how much we should sink into our vice president’s palace (remember I told you then we don’t just spend or procure when the issue is such high-class project, we sink money into projects), whether it is N14billion, or N13billion or even N16billion, one of our senators who himself was enraged by the big big billions being mentioned for the project rose in defence of the people by rounding up the figure to a moderate N10billion, which he felt was adequate. Instead of clapping for him, some of us still condemned him because we did not think our Number Two Citizen deserved to live in such opulence. I can only imagine the kind of embarrassment we must have caused the gentleman vice president by subjecting his abode to such debate in the market square.
Back to the Kenyan legislators. Who says they do not know what they are doing by making those extraordinary demands? When you see people who spit on the ground and quickly rub it with their foot, it is because they know what spittle could be used for. After skinning the Kenyans while in office, the legislators need life bodyguards in retirement lest they get torn to shreds by the people. Of course they need State burial so Kenyans would also be responsible for their funeral expenses. After serving the people so lazily and corruptly, there cannot be a better way to complete the insult than to ask the people to pick the bills of their burial as well. I think they must have heard from the Yoruba people here that Aye l’Oyinbo nje ku (the Whiteman enjoys till he dies). Kenyans have to carry the responsibilities of their legislators in life and death.
Bad as our own legislators could be, have they been asking for diplomatic passports for their spouses? Bad as our lawmakers are, I have not seen anywhere that they ever asked us to give them bodyguards for life, maintained by the taxpayers. The best we see is for those of them who have the means or have stolen enough, to acquire bullet-proof jeeps. There are no accident-proof cars yet; otherwise Nigerian lawmakers and political office holders generally would scramble to have some. May be this is an area Nigerians have to pray to God to grant the White Man speed, wisdom, knowledge and understanding to manufacture accident-free vehicles to at least spare these leaders from knocking down the people they lead in their attempt to get away fast from God-knows what on our death traps called roads! Bad as our legislators are, I have also not seen them asking that they be given State burial when they die. So, we can now see clearly that if we compare children, we will flog one to death for the other.
The point is that people do not appreciate what they have until they lose it. We may never appreciate our crop of legislators until they travel to Kenya to see how their Kenyan counterparts are doing it and return to insist on the same measure, after being bitten by the Kenyan bug. Unlike the Kenyan legislators who would rather follow dead bodies to the grave in their quest for insatiable wants, our own lawmakers know the limits of their greed. At least they are not as lazy, corrupt and overpaid as their Kenyan counterparts. We owe our Senate President David Mark and House of Representatives Speaker, Aminu Tambuwal, a debt of gratitude for the enormous sacrifices they are making in order to make laws for our good governance!
