The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has taken the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) to court over its plan to increase the salaries of Nigeria’s top political office holders.
In a statement issued on Sunday, September 7, SERAP disclosed that it filed a suit at the Federal High Court, Abuja, seeking a declaration that the proposed pay rise for the president, vice-president, governors, their deputies and lawmakers is unlawful and unconstitutional.
According to the suit, numbered FHC/ABJ/CS/1834/2025, SERAP argued that “the proposed salary increase for the president, vice-president, governors and their deputies, and lawmakers in Nigeria is unlawful, unconstitutional and inconsistent with the rule of law as it violates the provisions of the Nigerian Constitution 1999 [as amended] and RMAFC’s Act.”
The group is also seeking “an order of injunction restraining RMAFC, its agents and privies from taking any step to review upward the salaries of the president, vice-president, governors and their deputies, and lawmakers in Nigeria.”
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Instead, SERAP asked the court to compel RMAFC “to review downward the salaries and allowances of the president, vice-president, governors and their deputies, and lawmakers in Nigeria to reflect the economic realities in the country.”
Its lawyers, Kolawole Oluwadare, Oluwakemi Oni, and Andrew Nwankwo, stressed that, “when the exercise of RMAFC’s constitutional and statutory mandates clashes with Nigerians’ fundamental rights, the public interests in upholding these rights ought to prevail.”
SERAP further maintained, “RMAFC cannot legitimately or justifiably increase the salaries of the president, vice-president, governors and their deputies, and lawmakers at a time when over 133 million Nigerians are poor and several state governments are failing to pay salaries of workers and pensions.”
The suit has not yet been assigned a hearing date.