Alex Enumah writes that other states in Nigeria need to follow Abia State’s lead by repealing laws that grant pensions to former governors and their deputies to reduce the cost of governance and redirect resources towards development
The Abia State House of Assembly recently set an example of good governance when it passed a bill to stop pensions for former governors and their deputies in the state. The assembly, which said the move was to ensure that “the outrageous cost of governance” is reduced for resources to be available for the development of the state, added that the pensions law in the state needed to be repealed given the current realities in the country.
It was in 2001 that the then Governor Orji Uzor Kalu, who served from 1999 to 2007, signed the ‘Abia State Governors and Deputy Governors Pensions Law No 4 of 2001.’ The law allowed former governors of the state and their deputies to collect pensions for life.
The law stipulated that the former governors and their deputies were entitled to 100 per cent of the annual basic salaries of the incumbent governor and deputy, while their cooks, stewards, drivers, and gardeners were to be paid by the state.
Under the law, former governors were entitled to two vehicles worth N20 million each for every four years. They were also entitled to three police officers and two operatives of the Department of State Services (DSS).
The implication is that all former governors of the state and their deputies, including Kalu, Theodore Orji and Okezie Ikpeazu, will no longer be entitled to the humongous pensions the law allowed them to be getting from the state government for life.
As soon as the bill was passed, Governor Alex Otti signed it into law, saying that it would promote good governance and stewardship in the state, emphasizing that leadership should not be an avenue to embezzle public funds.
The governor described the new law as a step in the right direction, noting that prioritising public welfare over individual benefits ought to be given key consideration in policy-making. He also said he was aware that he would have benefitted if the law continued to exist but it was best to use the funds to improve the lives of citizens. In his view, pensioners were the people who needed the funds the most and not former officeholders.
He further expressed displeasure over the practice of allocating 80 per cent of the state’s budget to recurrent expenditure and 20 per cent to capital expenditure by past administrations, saying that the changed policy was part of the efforts made by the present administration to reduce the cost of governance.
Over the years, there have been a lot of controversies concerning the outrageous life pension and other enviable benefits being paid to the governors and their deputies.
Not everyone sees the rationale for former governors and their deputies to be entitled to humongous pensions after four and eight years in office even when it is evident that many of them misappropriated money. It is quite shocking that former governors are entitled to pensions after leaving office when career civil servants who served between 20 and 35 years are not paid their entitlements.
Many Nigerians who thought the 2019 judgments of the Federal High Court and the Court of Appeal describing the payment of severance allowances to elected or appointed public office holders as morally wrong would help checkmate the anomaly were shocked when state governors ignored them, insisting that the payments of pensions in their states were backed by state laws.
For instance, after the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) sued the federal government and the 36 state governments over the pension laws in the states, Justice Oluremi Oguntoyinbo of the Federal High Court in Lagos in 2019 said emoluments for former governors were unacceptable, unconstitutional and illegal.
She consequently granted an order of mandamus compelling the Attorney General of the Federation to identify former governors and their deputies collecting pensions from their states and seek full recovery of public funds from those involved. The judge also gave an order directing the AGF to institute appropriate legal actions to challenge the legality of states’ laws permitting former governors to enjoy life pensions. As usual, the judgment and order were never obeyed.
Additionally, the Court of Appeal in a judgment on an appeal marked CA/A/810/2017 and filed by the Kogi State Government against seeking pensions and severance packages in the state, held that the fact that elected public office holders and political appointees were paid huge amounts of money as monthly salaries and other forms of allowances while in office makes it morally wrong for them to demand pensions, gratuities or severance allowances for holding such an office for four to eight years as the case may be.
The three-man panel of the appellate court which had Justice Emmanuel Agim, Justice Abubakar Datti Yahaya and Justice Tinuade Akomolafe-Wilson, submitted that it amounted to gross social injustice, and unjustified in the context of the nation’s present social realities.
The lead judgment, which was delivered by Justice Agim (now JSC), said it was wicked and morally wrong for political office holders and political appointees, who helped themselves to public funds while in office, to claim entitlement to pension and severance allowances.
He submitted that it was wrong for political appointees and elected public office holders, who do not work as long and as hard as career civil servants to quickly get paid huge severance allowances upon leaving office in addition to the huge wealth they acquired while holding such offices and without having been subjected to any contributory pension schemes.
First to commend Otti for his “courage” in repealing the law was former President Olusegun Obasanjo who called on other state governors that pay pensions to former governors to emulate Abia State. He described the payment of pensions to former state governors and their deputies as outrageous and “a daylight robbery.”
Obasanjo added: “It’s like trouble because it allowed them to have a house in Abuja and elsewhere, and it allowed them to cart away with whatever they can, yet the pensions of ordinary people from 2014 are unpaid. What sort of leadership? You came and said there would be an end to that rascality. I congratulate you, and I say to you, I hope that your colleagues will follow in your footsteps.”
Also, SERAP urged President Bola Tinubu to emulate Governor Otti by immediately obeying the judgment ordering the federal government to recover pensions collected by former governors, and to challenge the legality of states’ pension laws permitting those involved to collect such “outrageous pensions.”
In a letter dated March 23, 2024, and signed by its deputy director, Kolawole Oluwadare, SERAP urged Tinubu to emulate the Abia governor “by urgently obeying the 2019 Federal High Court judgment, something which former president Muhammadu Buhari blatantly failed to do.”
Even when Governor Otti knows that he would benefit from law after leaving office, he still went ahead to repeal it.
This is why other states should emulate him if indeed elected officials want to truly serve the people.
