SENATOR Orji Kalu says President Bola Tinubu is aware of the country’s fluttering economy and is taking steps to address the challenges facing Nigeria.
“The president himself knows that Nigerians are suffering and hungry. He is a street person; he knows the street very well,” Senator Kalu said on Thursday’s edition of Channels Television’s Politics Today monitored by News Point Nigeria.
“The president some nights secretly uses his car to go around and know what is happening in Abuja.”
The country’s inflation figures hit 32.7 per cent in September 2024, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
Since the removal of fuel subsidy and the floating of the naira, the cost of basic items has moved beyond the reach of millions of Nigerians.
But Senator Kalu argued that the economic hardship is not peculiar to Nigeria. He said the country is also battling from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic which grossly affected the global economy.
The lawmaker further disclosed that he earns a total of N14 million every month as a Senator.
“I earn N14 million for everything in a month. That is everything encompassing, the overhead, the worker’s salary, everybody,” Uzor-Kalu said.
Uzor Kalu, who is a former governor of Abia State, argued that the N14 million is not enough to buy petrol to travel to his constituency, maintain the constituency office among other things.
One of the most controversial issues that have always been raised against the national assembly is the luxury cars given to lawmakers as their official vehicles.
However, Senator Uzor Kalu denied that lawmakers are given official personal vehicles, saying that the only the various committees in the national assembly that are given vehicles.
“I am in the Senate and a lot of things are said about the Senators and I sit there quietly and watch, and most of these things are not true. All I know is that committees get vehicles, no lawmaker is given any vehicle,” the Senator said.
