An analysis of the 2024 budgets has shown that the National Assembly and the 36 state assemblies of the federation as well as their agencies will spend about N724bn this year.
Further findings also revealed that the salaries and allowances for federal and state lawmakers would cost the country about N50bn this year.
This means that the federal and state governments earmarked N673.94bn for the national and state assemblies as well as their related agencies in the 2024 budget.
The salaries and allowances are based on data collated from a document obtained from the website of the Revenue Mobilisation and Fiscal Allocation Commission.
However, the overall allowances exceed the reported figure due to undisclosed amounts for several of the lawmakers.
An analysis shows that 109 members of the senate will get N8.67bn in salaries and allowances while 360 members in the green chamber will get N24.43bn in salaries and allowances.
A breakdown shows that the annual basic salary of the President of the Senate is N2.48m each year (about N9.92m in four years) while that of the Deputy President is N2.31m yearly (about N9.24m in four years.
The disclosed allowances include constituency allowance (250 per cent of the basic annual salary), duty tour allowance (N50,000 per night), Estacode ($1,300 per night), Recess (10 per cent of the basic annual salary) and severance gratuity (300 per cent of the basic annual salary).
The salaries of the 107 senators will cost N868.3m, while their allowances will cost N7.72bn.
Similarly, the Speaker of the House gets an annual salary of N2.48m (about N9.92m in four years), while the deputy gets N2.29m (about N9.16m in four years).
The salaries of the 358 House of Representatives members will cost N2.84bn while their allowances are estimated at N21.04bn.
