A political science professor, Mr. Bedford Umez, just started a petition for Nigerians to sign to draw attention to the ungodly salaries of our legislators. As government professor Mr. Umez believes that the voice of the people could move our legislators to modify their behavior and stop the looting of our public treasury. Another professor had initiated another petition before. Mr. Aluko had used a petition drive to draw attention to the insult on Nigeria by a Texas senator and he immediately apologized. Petitions do work. But petitions alone will not do the trick this time. Other Nigerians in their respective fields should join in the action to make our legislators understand that we the people are not pleased with their outsized salaries.
We need a Gani Fawehimi to explore the legal angles. I do miss this patriotic lawyer. We have lawyers in abundance. Would a Seyi Awofeso try to educate us on ways we could pursue the legal angle. Would solicitors and advocates please step in now that Gani is no longer here? Can it be said that he is irreplaceable? Where is Emeka Ugwuonye and his kind? There is an opportunity here for a brilliant lawyer to shine and serve his/her country. What I am asking is for somebody to point a way out for Nigerians.
A third prong in this fight would be for journalist to join in the fight. One of the weapons that won independence for Nigeria was the work Dr. Azikiwe, Mr. Ernest Ikoli and Chief Awolowo in using their newspapers to arouse the public about the dangers of colonial administration. The public responded to the editorials in West African Pilot, Spokesman, and other newspapers. Nigerian news outlets can play the same roles now. If Saharareporters, Elombah.com, The Will Newspapers, US Africa, huhoonline.com, and other on line publications would join the fight, one will be amazed at how quickly we will get the ears of our legislators.
The biggest gun in our armory is the labor unions. A legislator makes more money in a month than the aggregate of the salaries of teachers in his electoral district. Imagine that! This legislator makes more money than the combined salaries of professors in a university department. This should be unacceptable to the electorate. Our labor leaders should stop work and call their members out and refuse to go back to work until the salaries of our legislators are reduced to the mean salary of G12 countries’ legislators. Such a salary would make our legislators’ compensation internationally comparable.
A combination of petitions, legal action, public shaming by journalists and strike action would change things quickly. The benefit of this is that it would make politics less “a do or die” affair and more a public service. An election that would make an ordinary person a multi-millionaire would be fought with no hold bared attitude.
Things do not change in Nigeria because we the people do not challenge our leaders and so they do whatever they like. Those calling for a revolution, here is one way you can help start and there would be no loss of lives or any destruction of property.
Let us start by signing this petition: http://www.umez.com
We can do this from anywhere we are in or outside Nigeria. It will mean that you are concerned about the rape of Nigeria by Nigerians. We hope that our lawyers, journalists and trade union leaders would combine their abilities with the petitioners to show the peoples’ muscle.
Benjamin Obiajulu Aduba
Boston, Massachusetts
April 10, 2014
