The Labour Party (LP) has criticized President Muhammadu Buhari and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo for announcing a 50 per cent reduction in their salaries.
The comments were made on Wednesday, July 15, by LP National Chairman, Abdulkadir Abdulsalam.
Abdulsalam said:
“What would the salary cut do for the Nigerian poor masses? Buhari should address the realities of the situation and stop playing to the gallery. This is a populist action. What he needs to do is to see where there are wastages and block them, serious act of corruption still goes on and he need to take serious action.”
“He should not be wasting his time cutting his salary. If he is cutting his salary, is he also cutting his security votes, is he cutting the monumental expenditure in the Presidential Villa in the name of running government, is he cutting down the number of fleets in the presidential convoy or the aircraft?”
“Is he cutting down the number of foreign travels that he has commenced? This are some of the areas he should act and seen to act upon. What happen to the June promise that one or two of the refineries would start working? Nigerians would appreciate him when they know the constraint he is facing in righting the wrong and this should be applicable to the subsidy controversy.”
“He has to get the refineries working as promised during the campaigns. If this is achieved, he can remove subsidy, even at that who would be talking about subsidy if the refineries are working again?”
The Presidency announced, on July 10, 2015, that Buhari and Osinbajo would only receive half of their actual salaries as part of steps to reduce the cost of governance in the country.