Senator Elisha Abbo, who formerly represented Adamawa North Senatorial District, has confirmed that senators presently earn N29 million, noting it is not enough for the demands of the office.
Abbo stated this during an interview on Arise TV on Sunday, stating that his salary and allowances while he was a senator in the ninth assembly was N14.4 million.
“When I was in the Senate, cumulatively, all the allowances were N14.4 million per month. You have a wardrobe allowance, a vehicle allowance, and other allowances put together that were N14.4 million, including the N1 million salary,” he said.
“It is about N29 million now. N29 million looks big on paper. I’m saying this as a honest man. I’m not trying to support the National Assembly, and I’ve been a member of that vilified institution for five years. I am not standing with them, but I’ll bear the facts on the table.”
Claiming he became poorer after quitting his private business to go into public life, he said, “I had to leave the company I founded, in which I was the managing director/chief executive officer, to go into governance when I won the election.
“I had to start subsiding my life because the money that was allocated to my office was absolutely nothing considering the demand and challenges faced by my own constituents on a daily basis.
“I had a case of just one person I took to the hospital; I spent N14 million on one person.
“And every month, from all over Adamawa State and other states, my office was besieged with people looking for help.
“I had to start calling some state governors to help me with cases that are being brought from their states into my office.”
Abbo further alleged that some state governors go home with up to N1 billion for state responsibilities.
“From N14 million, I was paying for people’s scholarships, subsiding people’s expenses while a state governor in this country is going home with over N700 million security vote every month, some go home with N1 billion to do other security issues,” he said.
“I am poorer, much poorer as a man when I became a politician than I was before I became a politician,” Abbo added.
