The Senate Majority Chief Whip, Senator Ali Ndume, on Tuesday, decried the poor remuneration for security agencies, saying that recruits are paid less than N50,000 a month.
Ndume, a former Chairman of Senate Committee on Army, asked the Federal Government to urgently review the stipends and salaries of serving military personnel.
He also said Nigeria does not have enough security agencies and personnel to handle the security challenges of the country.
“The recruits are paid less than N50,000 in some cases. How can you pay somebody money that cannot buy him a bag of rice and you expect him to go and sacrifice and put in his best?”
“How can you pay a Nigerian soldier, for example, an allowance of N1,200 as his daily money and pay him N2,000 only as Duty Tour Allowance and put him in the theatre? Some from Lagos, Oyo, and Ondo moved to Maiduguri,” he asked on Channels Television’s Politics Today.
He added, “Their parents are expecting that they will send them something monthly and you pay the guy N50,000 or less. These are the major challenges that the government must rise to. Right now we don’t have enough security agencies or personnel to handle the security challenges.”
Making a case for the urgent increment of salaries for security agencies, the lawmaker representing Borno South said the Nigerian government last increased their salaries in 2008.
He also wants the government to recruit more security operatives, especially to make up for the deficit manpower in the Nigerian Police Force as well as the Nigerian Army.
Apart from salary increments and more recruitment, Ndume asked President Bola Tinubu’s administration to provide adequate equipment for the military to address the nation’s threats and also boost their morale.
“What the President must do is to review the salaries of the Nigerian Armed Forces because it was last reviewed in 2008, we are in 2023.
“We should review the salary of all the security agencies, we should increase the number of security agencies, especially police, and the Nigerian Army. We should equip them adequately and we should motivate them,” he added