In as much as most legislators will want to relate with their constituents, there are challenges hindering such relationships. These ranges from time and resource con-straints, misconception of the roles of the legislature by the constituents, enormous
Table 1 Countries and amount of CDF per member (in US dollars)
Country Amount of CDF per MP Philippines $4,270,001
Bhutan $43,000
Solomon Islands $140,000
Kenya $794,464
Malaysia $577,951
Jamaica $456,361
India $420,790
Sudan $317,543
Pakistan $240,000
Malawi $21,352
Tanzania $13,761
Uganda $5187
Source: Udefuna et al. 2013, pp. 651–652
needs of constituents, overbearing influence of local political gladiators, political party’s interest and legislators’ personal interest, among others.
The fact that no government in the world has enough resources to take care of the people’s needs has a trickle-down effect on the legislators. On several occasions, the National Assembly often complains of paucity of fund which negatively affects leg-islative activities. A comparison of the annual pay of legislators in the USA and Nigeria shows that while a senator and a member of the house in the USA are annu-ally entitled to $3,409,422 and $1,429,909 respectively, those of Nigeria get
$184,961 and $166,739, respectively (NILS 2015). This implies that the annual remuneration (including salaries and yearly allowances) of a Nigerian Senator is pegged at N12, 902,360.00 and a member of the house is entitled to N9, 525,985.50 annually as salaries and allowances (Saliu and Bakare 2016). Though, it is widely believed, as argued by Amaefule (2015), that the salaries and allowances of legisla-tors (especially in Nigeria) are not limited to the ones officially stated; rather, there are others that accrued through self-appropriation and corruption. However, the Table 1 below shows the breakdown of the official entitlements of Nigerian legisla-tors. Going by the official amount of money at the disposal of an average legislator in Nigeria, one may agree that it cannot take care of the enormous constituency needs before him or her. Table 2 below shows the breakdown of official salaries and allowances of legislators in Nigeria.
From the Table 2 above, one can see that a Senator is paid N5,000,000.00 annu-ally to support his or her constituency, while a House member takes N1,985,000.00 annually for the same purpose. Going by the analysis of Hon. Akinderu-Fatai who claimed to spend an average of N300, 000.00 daily to support the needs of the con-stituents, an average legislator will need about 100 million naira (N100,000,000.00) for constituent supports. In addition, there is also time constraints as legislators are usually busy with legislative works (plenary and committee sittings, oversights and project sites tours, party caucus meetings, etc.) which gives little or no time for constituency relations. To this end, financial and time constraints greatly hinder legislative–constituency relations in Nigeria.
Misconception of the roles of the legislature by the constituents is another chal-lenge hindering effective legislative–constituency relations. Many Nigerians expect their legislators to construct roads and build schools and other infrastructures in their respective constituencies, against the constitutional roles of lawmaking. The failure to provide these infrastructural facilities makes them to be seen as ineffective and irresponsive. This to a large extent deters most legislators from visiting their constituencies. The erroneous belief that legislators receive funding for constitu-ency projects is also an issue. Any attempts by the legislators to clarify these misconceptions are usually met with stiff rebuff from the constituents, leading to hostile relationship between both parties.
Out of all elected officials in Nigeria, legislators are most proximate to the peo-ple. Thus, most people believe that the legislators can help them to solve individual problems. This leads to enormous constituent requests from the legislators beyond their financial capability. The easy accessibility to constituency offices prompts people to flood the office with direct assistance requests ranging from jobs,
community development appeals, financial support requests and letters of recom-mendation to the embassies for visa application and workplace for employment consideration, among others. The inability of most legislators to develop strategies to filter or cope with the enormous request encourages them to sever the legislative–
constituency ties.
The overbearing influences of political lords/gladiators on legislators also con-tribute immensely to ineffective legislative–constituent relations. Nigerian politics is such that popular support of the people is inferior to the support of the few power-ful political lords. An average legislator seeking re-election prefers the support of the political overlords than those of the people or electorates. This is because the powerful lords mostly determine who the party’s flag-bearer is, and who also wins the general election not minding the direction of vote cast by the people. However, the introduction of electronic card reader appeared to have reduced direct falsifica-tion of elecfalsifica-tion results. Vote buying has assumed a dangerous dimension in Nigeria, especially under the APC-led federal government. This is to make up for the check imposed on politicians by the electronic card reader. To this end, the legislators
Table 2 Breakdown of Nigerian legislators’ salaries and allowances
Senators (N) House of Representatives (N) Annual
Basic salary 2,026,400.00 1,986,212.50
Vehicle fuelling/maintenance 1,520,000.00 1,489,000.00
Constituency 5,000,000.00 1,985,000.00
Domestic staff 1,519,000.00 1,488,000.00
Personal assistant 506,600.00 493,303.00
Entertainment 607,920.00 595,563.00
Recess 202,640.00 198,521.00
Utilities 607,920.00 397,042.00
Newspapers/periodicals 303,960.00 297,781.00
House maintenance 101,320.00 99,260.00
Wardrobe 506,600.00 496,303.00
Estacode $950.00a $900.00a
Tour duty $37,000.00a $35,000.00a
TOTAL 12,902,360.00 9,525,985.50
Tenure (Every 4 years) Others
Accommodation 4,000,000.00 3,970,000,00
Vehicle loan 8,000,000.00 7,940,000.00
Furniture 6,000,000.00 5,956,000.00
Severance gratuity 6,090,000.00 5,956,000.00
TOTAL 24,090,000.00 23,822,000.00
Source: NILS 2015 (as reproduced from Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission –RMAFC’s website http://www.rmafc.gov.ng/)
aNot added to total. The exchange rate is $1 = 360 naira
prefer to use their resources to secure the anointment of the political overlords and sever the legislative–constituency relationship.
Supremacy of political party’s interest over that of the people does negatively affect the legislative–constituency relations. In a situation where the interest of the constituency clashes with that of the political party, the latter supersedes. This is because legislators cannot afford to have an acrimonious relationship with the party chiefs as they need the party platform to run for re-election. Since the Nigerian elec-toral system does not recognize independent candidature, an average legislator will sever the legislative–constituency relations to satisfy his or her party’s interest.