The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has initiated a lawsuit against the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) concerning its proposal to increase the salaries of political and public office holders.
This includes the President, Vice President, Governors, their deputies, and members of the National Assembly.
Last month, the RMAFC Chairman, Mohammed Shehu, disclosed the commission’s proposal to increase, claiming that the salaries for these office holders are “paltry.”
Shehu stated that President Bola Tinubu currently earns N1.5 million monthly, a figure he described as laughable for a nation of over 200 million people, adding that the amount has remained unchanged since 2008.
But in a statement issued on Sunday, SERAP’s Deputy Director, Kolawole Oluwadare, said that RMAFC had been taken to court, though a hearing date is yet to be set.
He explained that in suit number FHC/ABJ/CS/1834/2025, filed last week at the Federal High Court in Abuja, SERAP is asking the court to decide whether RMAFC’s proposed salary increase for the president, vice president, governors, their deputies, and lawmakers is not unlawful, unconstitutional, and inconsistent with the rule of law
The group wants the court to declare that the proposed salary hike for politicians is unlawful, unconstitutional, and contrary to the rule of law, as it breaches the provisions of the 1999 Nigerian Constitution (as amended) and the RMAFC Act.
“An order of injunction restraining RMAFC, its agents and privies from taking any step to review upward the salaries of the president, vice-president, governors and their deputies, and lawmakers in Nigeria.
“An order directing RMAFC, its agents, to review downward the salaries and allowances of the president, vice-president, governors and their deputies, and lawmakers in Nigeria to reflect the economic realities in the country,” Oluwadare said.
In the suit, SERAP contended that preventing the commission from arbitrarily raising the salaries of these persons would protect legitimate public interest.
“Reviewing downward the salaries of the president, vice-president, governors, their deputies, and lawmakers would be entirely consistent and compatible with the Nigerian Constitution, the country’s international human rights obligations, and the current economic realities in the country
