Despite continued hardship experienced by Nigerians with no tangible relief measures from the government, the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, state governors, and their deputies may have enjoyed about N651.2m hardship allowance in the last eight years the Buhari regime.
The type of allowance, which is 50 per cent of the annual basic salary, is also enjoyed by judges in the country.
However, a recent report focuses on the amount allocated for the president, vice president, state governors, and their deputies, according to a document obtained from the website of the Revenue Mobilisation and Fiscal Allocation Commission.
The RMAFC document disclosed that the president is entitled to N1.76m annually as a hardship allowance. This means that within a period of eight years, Buhari would have earned N14.08m as hardship allowance.
The Vice President is entitled to N1.52m annually, which means that in eight years, Osinbajo would have earned N12.16m as hardship allowance.
While a state governor is entitled to N1.11m annually, a deputy state governor is entitled to N1.06m.
In eight years, the hardship allowance of the 36 state governors would have gulped N319.68m while that of their deputies would have gulped N305.28m.
As Buhari spends his last days in office, labour unions recently scored the regime and state governors low, saying they pauperised workers and inflicted hardship on Nigerians.
They lamented the galloping inflation in the country, which they said had eroded the 40 per cent pay rise recently approved by the Federal Government with effect from January.
The National Treasurer of the Nigeria Labour Congress, Hakeem Ambali, submitted that the outgoing regime had inflicted heavy hardship and suffering on the Nigerian workers.
According to him, the workers have suffered job losses, insecurity, economic hardship and other calamities under Buhari.
Ambali, who is also the President of the National Union of Local Government Employees, stated, “Under Buhari’s administration, just like every other successive administration, we have witnessed so many losses of jobs. Some governors laid off so many workers in the North, East and West. There has been a loss of lives as a result of banditry and kidnapping, especially in the South-East, South-West and in the whole North.
A report by the National Bureau of Statistics that about 133 million Nigerians live in poverty would be a recipe for a new dimension of hunger never witnessed in Nigeria, a civil society organisation under the aegis of the International Human Rights Commission recently warned.
While describing the report as a warning of a looming economic crisis in the country, the not-for-profit body stressed the need for government to empower people in the rural communities to reduce the rising poverty in Nigeria.
The Ambassador at Large and Head of Diplomatic Missions of IHRC in Nigeria, Dr Duru Hezekiah, warned that the poverty rate, if not urgently addressed, would be a recipe for disaster.
He said, “We are really in an economic crisis. And if it’s not checked, I tell you, the time is coming when will go into a fiasco, a time is coming when in fact, Nigeria will be declared a ‘hunger country’, and that is why we are still appealing to the government.”
Source: PUNCH
