SWL condemns the proposal of the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) to increase the remuneration of public officeholders in the strongest of terms. This proposal is a simple expression of the extent to which the ruling class in Nigeria and its functionaries hold us, poor working-class people who make up the mass of the population, in contempt. This is yet another example of how the system is designed to keep making the rich few richer and the many poor poorer.
We support the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) demand to jettison this proposal and halve the salaries of political officeholders. We refuse to allow ourselves to be fooled by the half-smart excuses they give, such as how much inflation has reduced the real worth of their salaries, or that increasing the workers’ minimum wage makes it equally legitimate to increase the income of political officeholders.
You cannot compare the life and means of livelihood of workers with those of these political office holders. We know how they go home every month with millions in allowances. This is without adding the billions that they steal in one way or the other into the picture. We have no illusions that they rely simply on their salaries. And the RMAFC should not engage with the working people as if we are fools.
We need to change what governance means. Those in public office must be our servants and representatives who are recallable by us, and bound to act on our mandate on a regular basis and not simply after elections every four years. Power must belong to the people in truth and in deed and not only as audio power. Power should not be in some elected or appointed office holders who will always find ways and manners to fleece money from the public treasury as we know is the case and has always been the case.
SWL is committed to revolutionary democracy, where people will mobilise and allocate revenue themselves, wielding power through popular structures rooted in their workplaces and communities. We, the people, must rule society in our name, not as is the case now where a few capitalists and their lapdogs rule us, supposedly in our name. That is a sham democracy to us. In a genuine democracy of the people, no officeholder should earn more than what an average worker earns. Public office holders must live as we live. They should go to the hospitals we can go to. Their children must go to the schools that our children go to. So, their wages must not be more than our own wages.
Jharmo TOWOLAWI
National Chairperson
Amara NWOSU
National Secretary
