Abolish life pensions for ex-governors, deputies!

 

Last week, the Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, said he was going to stop the payment of pensions to his predecessors and former deputy governors of the state. He said this while presenting his 2021 Appropriation Bill to the Lagos State House of Assembly. He said that the aim of repealing the law was to free the state government of the legal obligations, saying it was a step to reduce the cost of governance.

A news report in THISDAY of November 11, 2020 traced the genesis of what has become obnoxious rat race by governors to enjoy life pensions after leaving office.  The newspaper observed that Lagos State blazed the trail in 2007 when its then governor,  Ahmed Tinubu, at the twilight of his tenure, signed into law a bill earlier passed to provide pensions and other welfare benefits to former governors and their deputies beyond the package outlined for former political officeholders nationwide by the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission.

According to the Public Office Holder (Payment of Pension) Law, former governors of the state, who completed two terms consecutively, are entitled to a house each in any location of their choice in Lagos and Abuja. Also, a former governor is entitled to six new cars every three years, 100 per cent of the basic salary of the serving governor (N7.7m per annum), free healthcare for himself and members of his family as well as furniture allowance, which is 300 per cent of their annual basic salary (N23.3m). The law also names deputy governors as beneficiaries of vehicles, fully-paid vacation, medical insurance and other juicy perks.

Barely three days after Sanwo-Olu’s laudable decision, his Kwara State counterpart, Abdulrazaq Abdulrahman, on November 13, 2020 made a similar pronouncement via his Twitter handle. According to media reports, the governor said his administration would send a bill to the state House of Assembly to abolish pensions for former governors and deputy governors of the state. Abdulrazaq said the decision was in line with his campaign promise, adding that the saved resources would be channelled into tackling poverty and unemployment. He was quoted as tweeting, “In line with our campaign mantra and the yearnings of our people, next week, I will be sending a bill to the state House of Assembly to revoke the law awarding pension packages to former governors and deputy governors in Kwara State. Our state needs all the resources it can get to improve our human capital development. I believe our limited resources are better spent on tackling the question of poverty and youth unemployment.”

In a dramatic turn, press officer on local matters to former governor Bukola Saraki, Abdulganiyu Abdulqadir, said the law on pensions and entitlements of ex-governors in Kwara was revoked in February 2018 by the immediate past administration of Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed. This statement has warranted further clarification from the camp of the incumbent governor as his Chief Press Secretary, Rafiu Ajakaye, said what was done by the 2018 was a “slight amendment” of the law. He was quoted as saying, “What was done in 2018 was a slight amendment to the law. The amendment was a child of necessity to suspend payment of pension only for former governors/deputy governors who are serving in any public office and getting paid for it. This was to disallow double payment from the treasury to the same individuals, as was the case in Kwara State when Dr. Bukola Saraki was in the Senate and was at the same time taking humongous pension in the state.” He added that the state government will send a bill to the House of Assembly to repeal the governors’ pension law.

Recall that Zamfara State was the first to totally repeal this pension law in November 2019 after news broke that former governor Abdul’aziz Yari, requested his N10 million ‘monthly upkeep’, which he said had not been paid for some months then. The Zamfara House of Assembly thereafter abolished the law that allowed the payment of pensions and other allowances for the state’s former governors and their deputies. The spokesperson for the state’s assembly, Mustapha Jafaru, in a statement to journalists said the ‘abolished’ law also affects ex-speakers of the House of Assembly and their deputies.

At the last count, about 26 states have this life pension law for their former governors and their deputies. Ironically, according to an online newspaper Businessamlive.com, December 22, 2019 edition, “States paying former governors and their deputies jumbo pensions, including houses, vehicles, fully-paid vacation, medical insurance and other juicy perks, top the list of states with the highest domestic and external debts in the country. According to the information on the website of the Debt Management Office, the 26 states that have the pension laws for their ex-governors owe a total of N3,920,194,580,284.72 (about N4tn), comprising N2,906,789,725,341.46 domestic debts and $3,311,780,571.71 (N1,013,404,854,943.26) foreign debts as of June 30, 2019.”

According to the newspaper, the states with such pension laws leading the chart of domestic debtors include Lagos, Rivers, Delta, Akwa Ibom, Imo, Osun, Bayelsa, Kano and Kogi, in the order of their liability. Others are Oyo, Bauchi, Nasarawa, Borno, Edo, Gombe, Abia, Katsina and Zamfara states, which has repealed its own law as earlier mentioned. The rest are Kwara, Enugu, Ebonyi, Niger, Jigawa, Sokoto, Anambra and Yobe states.

It is mind-boggling that former governors and their deputies and in some cases former speakers and their deputies are living large, living in obscene opulence while most of their citizens wallow in abject poverty. To rob salt upon a festering injury, many of these former governors have taken “permanent seats” as either senators or ministers after their tour of duty as governors. Take for instance, former governors Babatunde Fashola of Lagos, Chris Ngige of Anambra, Timipre Sylva of Bayelsa, Niyi Adebayo of Ekiti, Ogbonaya Onu of Ebonyi,  Rauf Aregbesola of Osun State, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers, and Godswill Akpabio of Akwa Ibom to mention but a few are currently serving as ministers in the Buhari regime.

In the National Assembly, particularly the Senate, we have former governors such as Kashim Shettima of Borno State, Ibrahim Geidam of Yobe State,  Rochas Okorocha of Imo State, Orji Uzor Kalu  and his successor, Theodore Orji and former Deputy Governor Eyinayya Abaribe  of Abia State, Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun State, Tanko Al-Makura and Abdullahi Adamu of Nasssarawa State, Sam Egwu of Ebonyi, Danjuma Goje of Gombe State, Ibrahim Shekarau and Kabir Gaya of Kano State, Sani Yerima of Zamfara State, Chimaroke Nnamani of Enugu State, Joshua Dariye and Jonah Jang of Plateau State as well as  Gabriel Suswan of Benue State. The most annoying thing is that for some of these former governors such as Amaechi, Akpabio, Aregbesola and Suswan, they have been hovering around the corridors of power for close to 20 years. Yet, they are not satisfied with all the privileges accorded them and still have to collect obscene life pension as former governors.

At a recent capacity building workshop for state legislators in which I was one of the resource persons, the defence some of the state lawmakers gave me when I asked for the justifications of such life pension laws was that some former governors are living in abject poverty soon after they serve out their terms as governors and it is to cushion the after effect of power. However, given the mind-blowing amount these governors take home as security vote for which they do not have to render account, no former governor should be poor after leaving office if he is prudent in managing the resources at their disposal. Should a self-acclaimed billionaire governor like Seyi Makinde of Oyo State be entitled to a life pension?

Following a suit instituted by the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, Justice Oluremi Oguntoyinbo of the Federal High Court, sitting in Lagos, had in a landmark judgment ordered the Federal Government to “recover pensions collected by former governors now serving as ministers and members of the National Assembly, and directed the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr. Abubakar Malami (SAN), to challenge the legality of state pension laws permitting former governors and other ex-public officials to collect such pensions.” This is laudable and should be implemented without any further delay.

 

The earlier referenced THISDAY newspaper reported also that in January 2020, as a sequel to another suit filed by the Taraba State Government against Mr. Garba Umar, a former acting governor of the state, the National Industrial Court declared as null and void, the payment of the controversial jumbo pension and gratuity to former governors and deputies not in harmony with what is fixed by RMAFC. It is hoped that all the remaining states still paying life pension to their former governors will follow the good examples set by Zamfara, Lagos and Kwara states.