EDITORIAL: The illegality of ex-governors collecting both salaries and pensions as ministers

The life pension packages of former state governors has been a controversial issue since 2007 when the first set of Fourth Republic governors served out their eight-year tenures. It is a new low in public morality or governance, which has elicited a large dose of flak from Nigerians. It is not only odious but a serious violation of Nigeria’s Constitution. What makes it even more obnoxious is the fact that there are about seven, out of eight former governors in President Bola Tinubu’s cabinet, who enjoy this obviously undeserved reward, and will, at the same time, be paid salaries as serving public officers.

Ironically, the president is one of them. As governor of Lagos State between 1999 and 2007, his administration was the first to chart this unpopular policy course, which has now careened into more than half of the 36 states of the federation. This is despicable. As a result, the president should show leadership by denouncing it to serve as a moral compass for his ministers. For them to receive dual emoluments at the expense of suffering Nigerian masses, thousands of unpaid pensioners and workers in their respective states of origin, is a crass display of callousness.

The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) was spot on when it recently called out these ex-governors. It drew the president’s attention to the public interest it raises and advised him to stop the scandal. Ministers entangled in this moral skein are: Nyesom Wike, Adeboyega Oyetola, Atiku Bagudu, David Umuahi, Ibrahim Geidam and Simon Lalong. Bello Matawalle is not involved, having instigated a move that repealed the Governors Pension Act by Zamfara State’s House of Assembly as governor in 2019.

That some states have repealed their pension acts, others have totally shunned it, and with some ex-governors in states where the law exists refusing to accept these benefits, should have evoked moral qualms for those who still receive these pensions. As SERAP stressed, if the new ministers collect such life pensions, while claiming to be serving the public interest, then it says much about their conducts and integrity.

Instructively, the pension benefits of ex-governors run against the grain of constitutionalism and good conscience. The 1999 Constitution, as amended, stipulates that a pensioner in Nigeria must have worked for at least 10 years. Yet, this perverse entitlement is meant for a select group that spends between four and eight years in public service. Besides Zamfara, Imo is among a few states that have repealed their rogue pension Acts. More should follow suit, enamoured of the trite position in our grundnorm that any piece of law that is inconsistent with the Constitution is null and void to the extent of its inconsistency, and of no effect.

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Lagos State set this noxious ball rolling in 2007 with a law that provides a former governor life pension at the rate of N30 million per annum; a house in Lagos and Abuja for those who served two terms; six brand new cars every three years; free medical care for him and his family members; and a retinue of domestic servants. Successive governors after the class of 2007 have upped the ante, evident in the N300 million pension benefits for an ex-governor in Gombe State. Godswill Akpabio, as governor of Akwa Ibom State, signed a pension Act that provided N200 million annual benefit to an ex-governor.

As of 2017, 21 states treasuries had been fleeced of N37.4 billion as pension payments to 47 former governors. In this mix is their spending of billions of naira as security votes, which are unaccounted for, while in office. And as one of them once admitted, no ex-governor is poor, given the perks of office he enjoyed while in office for at least four years. The president and ministers should swiftly respond to this public yearning. To act otherwise will be emblematic of insensitivity and greed.

…Public positions are for public service, not self-enrichment

At last, President Bola Tinubu inaugurated 45 ministers, out of his envisaged 48-member ministerial team, last week. He urged them to be armour bearers in the execution of his Renewed Hope agenda. Sounding like a cleric, the president harped on transparency, accountability and integrity as sinews of good governance, amid high expectations from Nigerians. PREMIUM TIMES believes that they have no choice in this regard!

ALSO READ: SERAP to Tinubu: Stop Wike, Umahi, other ministers from collecting pensions as ex-governors

Clearly, their jobs are well cut out with the mountain of challenges before them: the economy is in tatters, which is pretty evident in the rising daily costs of living that has become a nightmare for most Nigerians. Insecurity is still an ever-present danger, typified in the recent massacre of 26 soldiers in Niger State by terrorists, while the health sector and educational systems are in sorry states. Nigeria’s crude oil is largely stolen, while the little oil revenues that come in are despoiled, just as abandoned projects litter the landscape, exemplified by the scam that the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) has become.

These absurdities stem largely from the woeful failure of successive ministers to perform creditably. What the country needs desperately is a redemption song in these areas and much more. And only ministers who understand their responsibilities can play the symphony. In clear terms, the essence of public office is service, not self-aggrandisement.

Unfortunately, the latter is often the case in Nigeria. Many ministers had in the past been caught in the web of criminal abuse of office, such as phoney contracts, cronyism, contract-splitting, bribe-taking, flagrant disregard of the Fiscal Responsibility Act and nepotism. This explains why the records of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) are replete with dossiers of corrupt practices of former ministers.

Laughably, many of these cases have been languishing in courts for about a decade, stymied by corrupt denizens of the judiciary and lawyers. The penchant of ministers for bribery, as was evident in the case of the late Sunday Afolabi, an erstwhile Police Affairs minister, was an eye opener in the $214 million SAGEM contract in 2003, under President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration. He was incarcerated and prosecuted along with his cohorts. Some ex-ministers have fled the country to escape being prosecuted or they secured higher offices that conferred immunity from prosecution on them.

Arising thereof, it behoves all Nigerians to be part of the watchdogs on these ministers. The situation that the country is presently in is akin to a state of war or emergency, which leaves no room to chance. One sure way to corral the ministers to the right track is for the president to have performance indicators and delivery timelines for each of them. President Tinubu should act like Obasanjo, if any of them derails; and not like his aloof predecessor, Muhammadu Buhari. Homilies, as he delivered on their inauguration, simply cannot replace the application of closely supervised performance indicators.