UAR (The T.A. Report) — The world’s most gratifying job is being a senator, particularly in Nigeria, a new study has revealed.
In a report published on Monday by the Centre for Research on Universal Income, Statistics, and Employment (CRUISE), it concluded after months of analysis that no other job comes close.
“Coming at a distant second is the work of being in a long-distance sugar-baby relationship with a rich, extravagant person,” noted lead researcher Ayuba Danladi.
Danladi explained that the variables examined by the centre are simple. They merely compared the benefits obtained from the job to the efforts required to maintain it.
“Everyone knows federal lawmakers in Nigeria, especially senators, are some of the highest paid in the world. But unlike their counterparts in advanced countries, they are not really expected to do jack.”
They could sit for only two out of 12 months and there would be no public outrage. In those two months too, their plenaries do not last more than a few hours and some of them, in fact, sleep through the debates.
“If you want to be seen as active or seen to earn your humongous salaries and allowances, sponsor a few bills, commission a few constituency projects (with tax payers’ money disguised as charity, of course), and make social media-worthy speeches about how the country is in deep trouble and how the leaders must do the right things. You could even shed a tear or too so that your sincerity is not in doubt,” Danladi said.
“But the truth is you don’t even have to do these things to be re-elected in perpetuity. Nigerian senators are the highest-paid figureheads in the world and their employers, the citizens, have no problem with it as long as they occasionally benefit from so-called empowerment projects.”
What’s more, he continued, all you need to be elected into office is some tangible business or political capital, a secondary school leaving certificate (genuine or not), and to have been born at least 35 years prior to the time of election (a fact which anyone hardly bothers to confirm).
“According to Nigerian law, anyone who is noted to be a lunatic or to possess an unsound mind is not qualified. But it is almost as if such people are even preferred nowadays.”
Meanwhile, reacting to the CRUISE study, Senate President Mad Lauhan said it isn’t true the honorable lawmakers are overpaid considering the trend of inflation in the country and growing insecurity, which should make them entitled to pay increases and hazard allowances.
“Ordinarily, we should have placed an order for bulletproof private jets considering how our honorable colleagues are now embarrassed at airports by flight delays and whatnot. But we understand too well the state of the economy and don’t want to overburden the country’s purse,” Lauhan said.
“For an organ of the government that has two employers, the people and the presidency, we should even be paid twice, but we are not asking for all these things even though they are fundamental.”
He added that it is also ridiculous to suggest that the senators are doing little to nothing to deserve their emoluments.
“Do you know how stressful it is to pad a budget by nearly a trillion naira?”
