Although Dogara admitted that his monthly allowances and office imprest as Speaker amounted to N25m, he explained that the funds were never adequate due to requests from constituents.
Dogara was the Speaker of the House of Representatives between June 2015 and June 2019.
Speaking on Wednesday, while delivering his goodwill message at the ‘Open NASS Week’ at the National Assembly, the former Speaker said he never spent any part of the allowances, adding that he asked his account officer to open a designated account where the monies were kept to service requests from his constituents and other Nigerians for four years.
“The allowances never lasted for three days due to the humongous number of requests for assistance from the public, especially constituents,” Dogara added.
Highlighting the importance of allowing legislators to perform their duties without undue financial pressure, Dogara expressed concern over the negative perception of the National Assembly, where members are often unfairly labelled as thieves.
He, therefore, charged the lawmakers to offer clarification to clear widespread misconceptions about the earnings of National Assembly members.
The former Speaker, who admitted that “Democracy all over the world is expensive”, however, called on Nigerians to support Democracy as it is the system that guarantees inclusion for all sections.
He said: “When I was Speaker, my salary was less than N400,000. I don’t know if it has been increased now. My total salary was N25 million, and I told my accountant to open a separate account for the salary, and I never took money out of that account. Whatever came into that account was used to cater for the needs of the constituents.
“My accountant complained about the level of demand on the account and I told him that if the money ran out, you should borrow. When the money comes in, you return it to where you had taken it from.
“I am saying this so that Nigerians will give their legislatures breathing space and know that the narrative about the salary of members is not true.
“We all know that democracy is expensive, and if we think it is too expensive, perhaps we should ask our political scientists to develop a local model that will be cheaper for us.”
