BY LEKAN SOTE
Anyone with a good conscience will be thrown into wonderment at the truth after reading the appeal by human rights lawyer, Femi Falana, to the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, and other senators who are allegedly receiving their “pension” as ex-state governors, even as they legitimately receive their salaries as serving senators.
In addition to the unconscionable pension that Justice Oluremi Oguntoyinbo of the Federal High Court in Lagos declared illegal and unconstitutional in a landmark judgment in 2019, some of these ex-governors (about 18 of them by the last count), receive other ungodly post-office perks.
Dave Umahi, former Governor of Ebonyi State, actually won a senatorial seat in the 2023 general elections, and was formally sworn in as a freshman senator, before President Tinubu appointed and swore him in as the Minister of Works.
But if Umahi, as a minister, still receives pension as ex-governor of Ebonyi State, he will be equally as guilty as his colleague ex-governors who are simultaneously receiving remuneration as senators as well as ex-governors. To rework a phrase from the Holy Book, “All would have sinned.”
Now imagine how much these nearly 30 individuals would have been drawing down from the exchequers of their states, and of the Federal Government as senators and pensionable ex-governors, if all of them are on Federal Government and state governments payrolls.
It gets even worse when you throw in the volume of pensions that retired Generals, or retired civil servants, who have served as state governors get when they become senators. That is a triple jeopardy for the Nigerian exchequer.
You will only appreciate the level of greed and absurdity when you remember that the funds spent by the Federal Government and the state governments (on the pensions and the current salaries of the lawmakers in question) come largely from the central pool of the Federation Allocation Account Committee.
Justice Oguntoyinbo had expressed disaffection with a situation whereby “former governors, who are now senators, enjoy governments’ emoluments, while (still) drawing normal salaries and allowances in their new political offices.”
In exasperation, the Justice ordered, in a rather long-winded manner that, “The Attorney General (of the Federation) is hereby directed to urgently institute appropriate legal actions to challenge the legality of states’ laws permitting former governors, who are now senators and ministers, to enjoy (ex) governors’ emoluments while drawing normal salaries and allowances in their new political offices, and to identify those involved and the full recovery of public funds from the former governors.”
It is interesting (regrettable and unfortunate) to note that Abubakar Malami, then Attorney General and Minister of Justice to the President Muhammadu Buhari administration, did nothing to obey the directive of this noble judge who retired in 2023.
The Socio-Economic Rights and Responsibility Project filed a suit of contempt of court to compel Malami, who routinely disobeyed court orders, to recover the rogue payments from the erstwhile governors but to no avail.
It has not yet been denied that an ex-governor of Akwa Ibom, who is “entitled” to N2, 223,705 monthly, also receives an official saloon car and a Sports Utility Van every four years, one personal aide, cook, drivers and adequate security.
“If Senator Akpabio is a beneficiary of this huge, elephantine, indulgent “bread of sorrow,” as alleged by Falana, he has the moral obligation to lead his colleagues out of the moral mess”
Other perks are allowances for furniture, vehicle maintenance and fuelling, entertainment, funeral expenses (indeed a state burial) and condolence allowance to the spouse of the deceased ex-governor.
According to (still serving) Senator Lawan Ahmad, who was President of Nigeria’s 9th Senate, a senator earns N1.5m per month, in addition to what he described as “quarterly office allowances.”
These include local and foreign travels, services of consultants, medicare, office stationery, computers, consumables (like tea?), books, newspapers, magazines, maintenance of office equipment, maintenance and fuelling of vehicles.
Imagine how much a serving senator, who is an ex-governor of Akwa Ibom, who has neither conscience nor compassion, will be taking home every month– in the face of depressed government revenue, high inflation, plunging Naira exchange rate and the consequent hopelessness of the majority of the citizens of Nigeria.
It’s even worse when some of the states that pay this criminal emoluments to ex-governors, who are now engaged either as senators or ministers, are unable to meet their statutory obligations, that include the provision of infrastructure, social services and payment of outstanding salaries of their workers and (financially marooned) pensioners who die by the dozen.
These ruthless nouveaux riches remind one of the protagonist of Scott F. Fitzgerald’s eponymous “The Great Gatsby,” who goes by the name, Jay Gatsby. He was a self-made aristocrat, who lived a life of fakery to impress wealthy Daisy Buchanan, a young lady that he had fallen in love with from when he was a youth.
Some of these senators-without-conscience are living proof of people who came out of nothing and came to high public office without any moral restraint. They do not seem to be aware of the poor image they are carving for themselves.
Well, a sage has said that you cannot give what you don’t have. The Yoruba would have said it more appropriately that these senators were absent when God was allocating the sensitivity of shame and conscience.
But as unsavoury as the “pension” scandal is, you must recognise the positive flip side of Kwara State (after Senator Bukola Saraki rejected it), Imo State and Zamfara State that cancelled the apparent daylight robbery of government exchequers and the commonwealth of the people.
Also, you must commend Senators Gbenga Daniel and Ibrahim Dankwanbo, respectively ex-governors of Ogun and Gombe States, who wrote to tell their state governments to stop paying the pension (maybe until their terms as senators are over).
Those moral states and the equally moral ex-governors that respectively mustered the courage to halt or (at least) suspend the pension must be commended. The lizard that fell from the tall Iroko tree in Chinua Achebe’s novel, “Things Fall Apart,” says he will congratulate himself if no one else will.
It is not easy to walk away from filthy lucre freebies that have become statutory, courtesy of a legally institutionalised corruption and daylight roguery, enabled by conniving legislators who woefully failed in their moral and constitutional obligation to check every errant Executive branch.
If Senator Akpabio is a beneficiary of this huge, elephantine, indulgent “bread of sorrow,” as alleged by Falana, he has the moral obligation to lead his colleagues out of the moral mess.
And if he will not voluntarily take that initiative, maybe President Bola Tinubu should gently nudge him in that direction.
