Ben Bruce asked to ‘emulate Canadian doctors’ by protesting high pay for senators

Ben Bruce, senator representing Bayelsa east, says while Nigerian doctors are protesting meagre salaries, their Canadian counterparts are protesting for being paid “too much”.

Writing via his Twitter handle on Thursday, Bruce said Nigeria cannot pay its doctors well “but we can budget ₦1.1 billion to clean a government office”.

“At a time Canadian doctors are protesting that they are being paid too much (your eyes don’t deceive you), doctors in Nigeria are on strike for not being paid enough,” he wrote.

But the senator’s statement did not go well with most of his followers.

While some of them accused him of being “part of” the plight of the doctors in Nigeria, a few others applauded him for speaking “common sense” — but “tell this to your colleagues on the floor of the senate.”

They asked Bruce and his colleagues at the upper legislative chamber to “take a cue” from the action of the Canadian doctors and protest their high pay.

Senators in Nigeria are collecting 13.5 million monthly, apart from their monthly salary, according to Shehu Sani, lawmaker representing Kaduna central senatorial district.

Below are some of the reactions Ben Bruce’s tweet generated.