Earlier this week, the National Assembly agreed to pay the newly-elected members a whopping N9bn (£29m) as a wardrobe allowance. This sum will be disbursed to legislators next week and when calculated, each senator would earn about N16.5m while a member of the House of Representatives would collect about N14.5 per cent each.
Widely condemned by a majority of Nigerians as insensitive, the huge payments have been criticised by Senator Murray-Bruce, who said it was obscene and he will donate his to the workers of Osun State. At the moment, about 18 states owe their workers salary arrears, with Osun being one of the worst affected as civil servants there have not been paid for seven months.
Senator Murray-Bruce said: “I, Ben Murray Bruce, will not sit down idly, while my fellow citizens die because salaries have not been paid. As a first step, I am immediately donating my wardrobe allowance to unpaid workers in Osun state and widows in my constituency.
“We are starting in Osun but we will not end there. I will do as much to help workers who’ve not been paid in other states and I call on all my friends and followers on Twitter and Facebook to donate non-perishable food items for these our brothers in need.”
He added that his donation to the under-privileged in his constituency will be publicly given to the head of widows association in my community of Akassa in Bayelsa state. According to the senator, as soon as his wardrobe allowance is paid, he will divide it into two, with half publicly given to the Nigerian Labour Congress chairman in Osun State.
However, his offer has been dismissed by Governor Aregbesola, who said it mocked Nigerian workers. Governor Aregbesola accused the lawmaker of playing to the gallery and engaging in self-serving philanthropy.
Governor Aregbesola said: “Of all the states in the federation who are battling to pay salaries as a result of the precarious economic situation his party the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) threw Nigeria into, why is it that it is Osun he wants to take his pay to? This is certainly playing to the gallery and nothing but a mockery in the faces of Nigerian workers and not only of Osun extraction.
“It is not only wicked but ungodly to play politics with the suffering of the people. If the senator’s conscience tells him his pay is too high especially in the face of the prevailing economic predicament of Nigeria the most honourable thing to do is to lead a protest for reduction and not a self serving philanthropy only in the direction of Osun workers.”
He added that it is saddening and tragic that Senator Murray-Bruce whom many had accorded a lot of respect is too early in the day joining the fray of politicisation and trivialising the salary issue in this ridiculous manner. Governor Aregbesola said that while Nigerians are involved in a hot debate over the alleged jumbo pay and the mood of the country Senator Murray-Bruce seems to have turned the plight of Nigerian workers to a thing of an entertainment.
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