Illegality, unstainability of ex-governors’ pensions

It was Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State who first courageously mooted the idea of scrapping the obnoxious and humongous pensions for Ex-Governors and their deputies in Lagos State. Apparently, his courage and convictions was put to test after external forces began to pressure him to forgo that line of thinking.

That matter has since been notoriously dumped into the dusbin of history. Today, Governor Sanwo-Olu is no longer an apostle of the abolition of pension for Ex-Governors but a would be worthy beneficiary of a fraudulent scheme designed to continually bleed the state to death.

At a time genuine pensioners are slumping and dying in queues waiting for their miserable stipends to be paid, the burden of pensions for former governors and their deputies may soon  outweigh that of regular pensions for civil servants if this haemorrhage is not halted with the speed of light. If the current trend continues, in twenty years time, an average state will be paying close to ten Ex-Governors and ten deputy governors which will gulp billions of naira for serving at best only eight years of two terms when civil servants who toiled and laboured for more than thirty youthful years get hardly paid their miserable gratuity and pensions.

Sadly, the Nigerian political elites had the notion of being served for life but forget that holding a political office is only but a transaction of trust and service to the people.  Ex-Governors wants to be paid pensions directly from the state coffers without contributing anything to it while subjecting civil servants to contributory pension that amount to nothing.

At a recent event in Asaba, it was reported that a Governor escaped being lynched by angry and rampaging pensioners who laid siege to the Event Centre in Asaba. It took the intervention of security officials for the governor to escape through the back door as thousands of ailing and aged pensioners protested many years of unpaid pensions in the state. It is in the public domain that the state government is owing pension to the tune of N75 billion. As a matter of fact, the incidence in that state is not an isolated case but a general trend in the country.

For a state bugged down by a heavy wage bill occasioned by a bogus and unwieldy civil service, Ex-Governors and their deputies are on the frontline of payments leaving the state with little or nothing for capital projects. Governor Okowa, expected to run a small and efficient government pandered to parochial politics by creating more agencies and appointed thousands of idle political aides thereby overbloating the wage bill of the state in an unprecedented manner.  While many of his admirers may have applauded his recent establishment of three new universities in the state, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) came hard on the Governor and heavily criticised the unnecessary proliferation of universities by state governments. At a time the existing University at Abraka hardly gets enough by way of subventions and votes to take care of its needs, establishing three new universities at this critical time is absolutely unnecessary. Indeed, experts have tasked the governor to expand existing structures in Abraka instead of some mushroom universities that cannot stand the test of time and meet global standard. It is rather sad that those who are supposed to uphold high standards in government are the ones promoting and celebrating mediocrity and retrogression in all facets of public life.

In 2007,the Lagos State government, under Governor Bola Tinubu, became the first state to enact the life pension law for Ex-Governors and their deputies with mouthwatering benefits running into billions of naira. Soon after, other states with weak legislative arms jump into the fray.

According to the duo of Olufemi Abifarin and J .O. Olatoke in their brilliant and well researched article: “Can a State House of Assembly enact pension law in Nigeria’, these erudite scholars asserted that the House of Assembly of a state has to, for instance, confirm to the manners, form and procedure prescribed by law, adding that, this shows that the House of Assembly of a state does not have wide power or absolute power to legislate even on items on concurrent legislative list and residual matters.

These illustrious patriotic citizens of Nigeria further averred that no governor collects pension in the United States excepts for the ex-Presidents and their widows that are entitled to pension and maintenance allowance. 

“We are not bound to follow America in toto but whatever adjustments we make in the Constitution must not be detrimental and burdensome to the economy’, they submitted.

It is my candid opinion that these pensions for Ex-Governors and their deputies are a total burden and unproductive venture to the state’s economy and should be, without, further hesitation, be scrapped.
Ibru, a Journalist wrote from Asaba.