Findings
have been made on how ex governors are being paid their pension in
Nigeria and how states have suffered terribly because of it.
Ex Nigerian governors
Former governors are exerting pressure on the finances of state
governments with pension payments and other entitlements draining
billions of naira every year from developmental funds for the states,
Sahara Reporters reports.
Over N37.367 billion was, according to Vanguard findings, expended
on servicing 47 former governors from 21 states in pension payments and
provision of houses, staff, and vehicles replaceable between three and
four years.
Bauchi tops pension payouts to ex-govs Payment of pension to former
governors over a four-year cycle are highest in Bauchi, Rivers, Akwa
Ibom, and Lagos states with former governors drawing N23.18 billion,
N2.795 billion, N2.043 billion and N1.606 billion respectively over four
years.
Former governors of Bauchi State are paid the sum of N1.201,634.28
billion per annum, while former deputy governors, according to Vanguard
findings, earn N1,131,345.96 billion per annum. The amount is apparently
based on the monetized benefits that include personnel, vehicles,
houses and other allowances.
The payments are in many cases besides provisions for medical
expenses for the former chief executives which run into hundreds of
millions per ex-chief executive.
The pension payments and other entitlements drawn by the governors
are irrespective of the prescription of the Revenue Mobilisation,
Allocation, and Fiscal Commission, RMAFC providing 300 percent severance
for the governors as stated in the Certain Political Office Holders and
Judicial Officers Remuneration Act.
Under that act, former governors are like lawmakers entitled to
300% of their basic salary of N2, 223,705 amounting to N6,671,115 as
severance pay. Some ex-governors Most of the provisions stipulate the
provision of vehicles renewable every three to four years, accommodation
at the state capital and sometimes in Abuja; 30-day-paid holiday
outside the country and free medical treatment for the former governors
and their immediate family members. However, a few other states
including Akwa Ibom, Yobe, Gombe, Lagos, Kano, Rivers, Kwara, and
Sokoto, have earmarked outlandish cash transfers to the former
governors.
The humongous payouts are sometimes styled as medical allowance and
have generated controversies. The Sokoto State pension law provides for
N200 million every four years for former governors, and with three
former governors, the state would have to cough out N600 million every
four years for the former governors. Another N180 million is set aside
for payment to former deputy governors. Gombe was the first to pay out a
benefit in the hundreds of millions when it paid N900 million to its
two living former governors (Abubakar Hashidu and Senator Danjuma Goje)
under the state pension law for former governors which provide N300
million per term for each of the two governors.
The Yobe State Pension Act signed into law in early 2007 by the
former governor, Bukar Abba Ibrahim gives former governors pension for
life.
The former governor/ deputy receive 200 million and 150 million
respectively, two vehicles replaceable every four years, two drivers,
free medical for the former governors/ deputies and their immediate
families in Nigeria or abroad. Senator Abba Ibrahim, who served three
different times as governor of the state is the only one enjoying the
entitlement being the only former governor alive. The only other person
to have shared the governor’s office with him were the late Senator
Mamman Ali who died in office and the incumbent. Other recommendations
besides the cash payments, some states, including Cross River, Kwara,
Lagos, Rivers, Bayelsa, Delta, Ebonyi, Kano, Zamfara and Sokoto States
have also recommended the payment of the basic salaries of the incumbent
governors as yearly pension payments to their former governors.
The version of the governors’ pension law in Kwara State which came
into effect in 2010 states that the former governor shall be entitled
to two cars and a security car, replaceable every three years, a
well-furnished 5-bedroom duplex, furniture allowance of 300 per cent of
his salary; five personal staff, three DSS operatives, free medical care
for the governor and the deputy, 30 per cent of salary for car
maintenance, 20 percent for utility, 10 percent for entertainment, 10
percent for house maintenance.
Chief Emeka Wogu, a former minister who also represented Abia State
in the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission, RMAFC
and was chairman of the RMAFC committee which prescribed the severance
payments told Vanguard that the pension laws prescribed by the states if
inconsistent with the law as prescribed by the commission, would be
deemed illegal.
Wogu, also a lawyer and public policy expert, however, drew back
from declaring the payments to the former governors as illegal.
“Anything outside the law that was recommended by the Revenue
Mobilisation, Allocation, and Fiscal Commission, and not in consonance
with the law, and where it is already prescribed by states houses of
assembly, that means that such laws are in conflict with the federal
law.” Ahead of the 2015 presidential election, General Muhammadu Buhari
as the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, had promised to
use moral suasion to compel the governors to amend the provisions of the
pension law on the ground that they were unsustainable.
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