There is a growing penchant for greed and self-centredness in leadership as Nigeria enters her 16th year of unbroken democratic odyssey. This acquisitive tendency of high profile public officials is demonstrated in the new pension bill passed last week by the Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly. Known as the Akwa Ibom State Governors and Deputy Governors Pension Law 2014, it provides a total of about N200 million annually, for life, as pension and gratuity for a former governor and his spouse. It also provides generous pension and gratuity for past deputy governors and their spouses for life.
Even at face value, the new law, which also covers all elected former governors of Akwa Ibom origin who served in the old Cross River State, is highly irresponsible. It is an anti-people law that should be discarded.
In a society where a majority of the population are living below poverty line, it is an unconscionable House of Assembly that would approve such a bill from a rapacious and lascivious executive. Akwa Ibom lawmakers should find the courage to reverse the law. They have taken their obsequiousness too far.
According to the essentials of the package, which was precipitately passed and signed into law within two weeks of being forwarded to the state parliament by Governor Godswill Akpabio, a governor and his deputy, who have served for more than three years in office would be entitled to a gratuity at 100 per cent of their annual salaries, and an annual pension – for life – at the rate of 300 per cent of their current salaries. This is a state where the governor announced N21,000 per month as the minimum wage in May, 2012.
Furthermore, the governor, according to the new law, will be entitled to a mansion fit for a king in the state and Abuja, domestic servants to be paid N5 million per month, and many other luxuries at the expense of Akwa Ibom taxpayers. To crown it all, the bizarre law provides for a former governor to be paid N100 million (or $600,000) per annum as his medical bills, while the deputy governor will get N30 million (or $200,000).
The law offends the sensibilities of Akwa Ibom people and all Nigerians. It proves that public office holders in Nigeria do not care about the people they are supposedly elected to serve. This type of ostentation is incongruous with the poverty level in Nigeria, where United Nations agencies say that 60.9 per cent of the population are living below the $1 a day poverty threshold. The N100 million medical allowance for only one individual will easily build several state-of-the-art primary health centres, but Akpabio, who is still relatively young, seeks to enjoy this immoral perk for as long as he lives. It should also be noted that more beneficiaries are likely to emerge every four or eight years. There may be a time when so much of the state’s resources will be deployed in the upkeep of former governors and their deputies.
The Akwa Ibom electorate have been taken for a grand ride. Is this how the lawmakers representing them will repay their votes? In putting the issue into proper perspective, we remind the governor and the lawmakers that Akwa Ibom boasts very little internally generated revenue apart from what comes from the Federation Account as Nigeria’s major oil-producing state.
Figures from the National Bureau of Statistics show that Akwa Ibom had about N13.5 billion as internally-generated revenue in 2012, which is just a little over N1 billion per month. The state proposed N29.61 billion as IGR this year, about N2.46 billion monthly. In the event of a sudden revenue loss from oil, how will the state government meet the needs of these fat cats? In that event, while ex-office holders will be getting paid for life, Akwa Ibom taxpayers will be thrown into indebtedness for life. This must not be the lot of generations of unborn children in the state.
Leadership is about service to the people. That is what holds in other climes. From the United States to the United Kingdom and Ghana, ex-leaders are not entitled to this much, even at the highest level. While the current US president, Barack Obama, earns about $400,000 per annum, he does not determine his own pension. This is the responsibility of the country’s federal pension office. Akwa Ibom, nay Nigeria, should not be an exception to the global trend. This subjective method of determining the pensions of former governors should not be the norm in this country.
However, other states of the federation – like Lagos, Borno, Rivers, Gombe and Kano – that also have such repugnant laws should repeal them. In Kano State, for example, the two governors from 2003 (Ibrahim Shekarau and Rabiu Kwankwaso) have accused each other of spending more than N2 billion as severance welfare packages on themselves alone. Yet, Kano has about 1.7 million school-age children roaming the streets without any hope of getting education.
Apart from the shamelessly compliant Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly, which was so eager to do Akpabio’s bidding, the labour movement in the state has failed the people of the state. Why has nothing been heard from the labour movement, which even had to questionably call off its planned protest march to the state’s House of Assembly on the day the bill was hurriedly passed?
In collaboration with the people, labour should make amends by mounting a sustained campaign for the repeal of the law, which has depicted Akwa Ibom people as incapable of holding their public office holders to account.
