The Action Congress of Nigeria, the Conference of Nigerian Political Parties, the Congress for Progressive Change, the All Nigeria Peoples Party and the All Progressives Grand Alliance, have described members of the National Assembly as anti-People and anti-democratic lawmakers.
They said in separate comments on Sunday that the move by the federal lawmakers to become members of their parties’ National Executive Committees was another clear indication that they were only interested in making laws to serve their personal interests.
The parties argued that the insertion of Section 87 in the bill to amend the 2010 Electoral Act by the lawmakers was not only ‘obnoxious’ but was meant to undermine the Act and democracy.
The bill, which passed second reading in the Senate on Tuesday, has majority support in the House of Representatives.
The ACN, in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, therefore, vowed to challenge the move contained in Section 87 of the bill in the courts.
It advised organised labour, civil society organisations and other political parties to march on the National Assembly to ensure that the ‘undemocratic’ bill was not passed.
The ACN added that the “self-serving, greedy and democracy-killing” proposed law was another “low in the legislators’ continuous efforts to make laws in their interest rather than in national interest.”
The party also said the controversial jumbo pay package of National Assembly members was another action that portrayed them as self-serving lawmakers.
It said, “Our legislators are the highest paid in the world, with those of Kenya a distant second. The widespread story is that each of them earns N1m per day, except on weekends and public holidays. This is not far from the truth, since each one smiles home with N45m per quarter, in a country where most citizens live on less than $1 a day, and the minimum wage being fought for comes to $4 per day.
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