Nigeria spends too much money on political office holders – Prof Sagay

-Nigeria should go back to the 1963 constitution.

-Politics is too expensive in Nigeria.

The chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption, Professor Itse Sagay, has decried the prevailing situation in which he said senators enjoy the powers to appropriate funds for themselves, draining the economy and leaving a vast majority of the citizenry impoverished.

Sagay, made this known while speaking at the Wole Soyinka Annual Public Lecture in Benin, the Edo State capital. He supported the re-adoption of the 1963 constitution which will ensure the restructuring of the nation into regions, noting that it is the only way to stop the bumper pay being received by the senators and other politicians.

Sagay said: “Politicians are killing themselves to be President, National Assembly members because all the monies are at the centre.

“With that type of self-interest and a few people collecting everything that we have, why should we allow the centre to have all the resources and the state completely impoverish, which is what we have today?”

He further stated: “It is imperative that we return to the 1963 Constitution, modified to suit our present circumstances, if we are to co-exist in a stable crisis-free and fast-developing nation.

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“The senators have wardrobe allowance; but they did not go to Abuja naked. They have newspaper allowance and furniture allowance— about 50 items which they never talk about.

“They only talk about their salaries, which is about N1 million a month. But when you add all these allowances, we are hitting N20 million per month. If you have true federalism, that money will not be available for them to blow.

“These are besides budget padding, which is a stable means of drilling money from the poor people of this nation.”