As the 9th National Assembly is inaugurated, is there a chance the members will return to a constitutionally approved income bracket, or are they going to remain recalcitrant like their predecessors? The previous assemblies, particularly the 8th assembly, led by Senator Bukola Saraki treated the national treasury like a bazaar sales, open for raid by the fittest.
That mandatory provision has been treated with ignominy by majority of past National Assemblies, yet section 153 of the constitution created the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission as a federal executive body to determine the remuneration of certain public officers. Under its Third Schedule Part 1N , itprovides the composition and powers of the RMAFC.
No doubt, the constitution has imbued the national assembly with enormous powers over the consolidated revenue of the federation. These powers are contained in the provisions of sections 80-84 of the 1999 constitution. But as humongous as the powers are, there is no provision for self-help with respect to the remuneration of members of the federal legislature by whatever name called.
There is no gain saying that the 1999 constitution operates on tripod, made up of the legislature, the executive and the judiciary. The fine essence of such distribution of powers is to ensure checks and balances, without which democracy will slip into autocracy. The makers of the constitution knows that if the executive is left to raise the money and singularly determine how to share same, such enormous powers will be abused.