President Tinubu visits France frequently so I hope he adopts measures introduced by the Paris Commune in 1871 to address the insensitivity of Nigeria’s lawmakers and their penchant for luxury SUVs

Ayo Akinfe

[1] Nigerians are currently incensed at the callousness of the members of the National Assembly who have bought themselves brand new SUVs at a time when inflation is running riot across the country. Are they aware that about 80m Nigerians are currently living in extreme poverty?

[2] Bear in mind that these same lawmakers recently paid themselves jumbo recess allowances. We are talking about legislators who are already among the highest paid in the world

[3] President Tinubu may just have the solution to hand as he clearly has a special relationship with France. I hope he studied the history of the Jacobins, the Paris Commune and their principles of liberty, equality and fraternity

[4] On March 28 1871, France took the world by storm when for the first time ever in the history of humanity, ordinary working people seized control of a country’s capital and established the Paris Commune. Many of the policies they introduced then remain with us until today and are taken for granted as universal human rights but at the time, they were extremely radical

[5] For starters, they passed decrees separating the church from the state, appropriated all church property and excluded the practice of religion in schools

[6] What I love about the Paris Communards though were their social policies. For instance, in its Third Arrondissement, school materials were provided free and an orphanage was established. In its 20th Arrondissement, schoolchildren were provided with free clothing and food

[7] They also provided gender and wage equality, the right of divorce for women, the right to secular education and professional education for girls. In addition, they removed the distinction between married women and concubines and between legitimate and illegitimate children. To top it up they abolished prostitution

[8] What we need President Tinubu to adopt from the Paris Commune today is its policy on pay restraint. The communards introduced a policy under which the pay of all officials of the Paris Commune was pegged at three times the minimum wage of the average worker

[9] What this will entail is the passing of a law wherein the pay of Nigerian lawmakers is tied to the minimum wage of N30,000. No member of the National Assembly should receive more than three times the minimum wage in Nigeria

[10] Alternatively, President Tinubu could go for a compromise paying senators the same amount as permanent secretaries on Level 17 and members of the House of Reps the same amount as Level 16 heads of parastatals