- By Halimah Olamide
The Senate has said that the amount of money paid to federal lawmakers in the country has nothing to do with the clamour by academic and non-academic personnel of universities over improvements on their pay.
Yemi Adaramodu, spokesman of the senate, said on a live television on Sunday that the budget for the National Assembly is different from the budget with which lecturers are paid.
He said asking questions about how much a senator earns monthly is unfair adding that what senators or members of the House of Representatives is in their right to earn it.
Adaramodu was speaking on a Channels Television programme on Sunday.
Asked directly to confirm how much senators take every month as salary and allowances, Adaramodu declined to confirm the amount insisting that the interviewer should find out himself and tell Nigerians the amount.
According to Adaramodu, the amount of money paid to lawmakers cannot be converted to funds to pay lecturers adding that it is the duty of the executive arm of government to provide funds for the tertiary institutions.
The interviewer had told Adaramodu that union leaders had alleged severally while government keeps saying it cannot afford the increases being demanded for workers, members of the National Assembly take home humongous salaries and allowances.
Our budgets are not interwoven. What is due to the legislature will not be used as a sacrifice to the executive,” Adaramodu said
He said Nigerians should not mix the payment sources together.
On the request that he should disclose the salaries and allowances of legislators, Adaramodu said it is not his duty to tell the interview how much the lawmakers earn.