AN X user, @naija_pr, has shared a claim that Nigeria’s vice president, Kashim Shettima, earns a total sum of N12 million naira annually including salary and allowances.
The claim posted earlier on April 27, 2025 and shared alongside a collaged image of Shettima and N1000 notes, read: “Nigerian Vice President earns ₦12,126,290 annually, including allowances — FG.”
It has garnered over 1 million views on X (formerly Twitter) with over 10,000 likes, more than 1,400 comments and over 1,200 likes as of June 19, 2025.
Even though the X user attributed the source of information to the Federal Government of Nigeria, many users in the comment sections expressed significant doubt about its accuracy citing the nation’s current economic realities including inflation, among other factors.
Recall that the claim was earlier debunked on April 28, 2025 by the Foundation for Investigative Journalism (FIJ), saying it was misleading. Our penchant to ensure accurate reportage of information in public space forced The FactCheckHub to seek the truth behind the VP’s annual earnings from government coffer.
CLAIM
Nigeria’s Vice President earns 12 million naira annually including salary and allowances.
THE FINDINGS
Checks by The FactCheckHub show that the claim is TRUE, as records of the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) confirmed.
Before we sent a Freedom of Information (FoI) request, The FactCheckHub reviewed the records of the RMAFC which is constitutionally responsible for determining the remuneration packages for political, public, and judicial office holders in Nigeria, including the President, Vice President, governors, and state and federal lawmakers.
As such, we looked at the timeline of salary reviews which have been influenced by various economic and political factors. We found that there have been reviews from the year 2000 till 2023.
For instance in 2000, RMAFC recommended a remuneration package, which was enacted as the Certain Political, Public and Judicial Office Holders (Salaries and Allowances) Act, 2002. Similarly, a subsequent review in 2007 led to the Amendment Act of 2008, which remains the prevailing legal framework for official salaries till date.
But in 2009 and 2015, multiple attempts were made to review the remuneration packages for political and public officer holders. In 2009, a downward review was proposed due to declining national earnings, but it was not passed into law. Similarly, the 2015 review was not endorsed by the Nigerian presidency or National Assembly.
In June 2023, RMAFC announced a proposed 114% salary increase for the President, Vice President, governors, lawmakers, and judicial officers. The commission stated that the new salaries would be effective from January 1, 2023, pending legislative approval. Till date, it has not been officially approved.
This necessitated our FoI request to RMAFC, the government agency in charge of remuneration packages for political and public officer holders, to ascertain the current salary package of Nigeria’s Vice President as of April/May 2025.
The FOI request was then filed at the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation (AGF) and the RMAFC. After few weeks of following up the letters, the AGF responded and redirected our request to the RMAFC. Weeks after, the RMAFC responded with a letter and the official gazette showing the current earnings of the nation’s vice president. This tally with the X user’s assertion.
Additionally, we tried narrowing down the original source of the claim attributed to the Federal Government. When our researcher conducted an advanced keyword search on Google, it led a to a report published by LegitNG on April 27, 2025 and titled “Salary and Allowance of Nigerian Vice President as Approved by FG. The report referenced a RMAFC publication dated 2007-2009.
In conclusion, although there were few upward reviews of salary package for political and public officer holders after the Amendment Act of 2008, none was finally approved or acted upon by the government.
THE VERDICT
The claim that Nigeria’s Vice President earns ₦12 million annually is TRUE; records exclusively obtained by The FactCheckHub from the RMAFC confirmed the amount.
This report is republished from the FactCheckHub.