As more governors bow out of service on Monday to join the League of Former Governors, BENJAMIN SAMSON speaks to Nigerians on their pensions and severance packages amid dwindling revenues.
By May 29, this year, no fewer than 18 governors will leave office. While 17 will leave after completing their second terms in office, Bello Matawalle of Zamfara state served only one term after losing to the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state.
They are Okezie Ikpeazu (Abia), Udom Emmanuel (Akwa Ibom), Samuel Ortom (Benue), Ben Ayade (Cross River), Ifeanyi Okowa (Delta), Dave Umahi (Ebonyi) and Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi (Enugu).
Others are Mohammed Badaru Abubakar (Jigawa), Nasir El-Rufai (Kaduna), Abdullahi Ganduje (Kano), Aminu Bello Masari (Katsina), Atiku Abubakar Bagudu (Kebbi), Abubakar Bello (Niger), Simon Lalong (Plateau), Nyesom Wike (Rivers), Aminu Tambuwal (Sokoto) and Darius Ishaku (Taraba).
However, criticisms have trailed the pension and severance packages that would be expended on these former governors by state governments as pension and other allowances.
Aside from humongous pensions, domestic aides, residential, office accommodation, vehicles replaceable on specific years, a house in choice places within the country are also provided for them.
However, this is coming against the backdrop of thousands of retired civil servants across Nigeria, who laboured for their states for 35 years, wallow in penury and often die without getting their pensions and other entitlements from the same state they served with dignity.
Blueprint Weekend gathered that the trend started when the first set of governors who were elected after the return of democracy in 1999 completed their second and final terms in 2007.
Debt profiles
Speaking with this reporter, a professor of Economics from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Fabian Onah, said while retirees who served their respective states are being owed their entitlements, resources are being squandered on for governors.
He said: “Surprisingly, this bogus pension and severance allowance is coming amid dwindling revenues, unsustainable salaries, pensions, unpaid gratuities and other financial obligations.
“Houses of assembly have nevertheless been further impoverishing their states, while enriching outgoing and former governors with outrageous severance and pension laws. This pervasive culture of entitlement is provocative, reckless, irresponsible, and corrupt. It should be stopped by determined opposition from lawmakers, civil society, and an active citizenry.
“States owed workers more than 20 years’ salaries. Taraba owes local government employees six months salaries and primary school teachers five months; doctors in Abia State University Teaching Hospital had not been paid for 24 months as of January; Imo owes many months’ salary arrears. Cross River owes street sweepers for four months, and Zamfara owes civil servants two months back pay.
“Ogun, Imo, Cross River and others, also owe salaries and other entitlements for at least three months. Many states owe pensioners. By 2022, only a few states were in full compliance with the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) regulations of the National Pension Commission. Sokoto, Katsina, Kano, Zamfara, Bauchi, Gombe, Borno, Yobe, and Jigawa have not fully signed on to the CPS; in 2021, PenCom said 22 states had liability shortfalls of about N4.74 trillion.
“Reports indicate that the 18 outgoing governors would bequeath at least N3.06 trillion debt to their successors. Data from the Debt Management Office disclosed that this translates to N2.27 trillion domestic, and $1.71 billion in foreign loans.
“Despite the prevailing economic crunch and poverty, 17 two-term outgoing governors (among the 18) would be entitled to humongous statutory pensions and other perks, including mansions, luxury cars, allowances, security, and vacation.
“Also, a backlog of pensions remains despite the disbursal of the $418 million Paris Club refunds specifically to defray this; many states continue to owe salaries and gratuities.”
Nigerians kick
Condemning the bogus pension and severance packages, a civil servant, Shedrach Wakawa, said it was wrong for the law to have been enacted in the first place.
He wondered how someone who after serving his state for a maximum of eight years without contributing to the pension fund, would all of a sudden, become a pensioner with such heavy amount of money to his credit monthly as pension, while workers who contributed to the fund for 35 years, could hardly be paid after their service.
“It does not make any sense at all that people who served the state for just a period of eight years only, and never in any way contributed to the pension fund, would be given such jumbo pay as pension, while those who contributed to the fund for 35 years, go home empty- handed.
“The governors, to me, should not be paid any pension. They should make do with what they got while in office.”
Labour under attack
Another civil servant, Mr. Christian Laminga, blamed labour unions for allowing the pension law, describing it as obnoxious.
“It looks as if we don’t have labour unions in states because if we have labour unions, they will kick against such obnoxious law. In Anambra, they wanted to start it, and labour kicked against it seriously and they stopped it.
“Look, they think that they are enjoying now but wait, 10 years to come, they will not be able to pay all these governors that they are paying their salaries for life, even permanent secretaries.
“The colonial masters that left and told us that we are going to earn 70 per cent of our salaries when we are retiring knew what they did but now they are politicising everything.
“A time will come when they will not be able to pay these permanent secretaries that are going with their salaries for life; the governors and their deputies that are going with their salaries for life; the professors and the judges that are going with their salaries for life.”
Rubber-stamp legislature
Likewise, a human rights lawyer and co-ordinator, Centre for the Vulnerable and Underprivileged (CENTREP), Oghenejabor Ikimi, would rather blame the state lawmakers for operating a rubber stamp legislature, describing the jumbo benefits for ex-governors provided in the law, as immoral.
He said: “It is immoral to have that kind of pension law for ex-governors, it is morally wrong for you to pay ex-governors and their deputies so much when we are unable to pay our pensioners in the state. It is immoral for a retired governor and any ex-governor with conscience to take such money at the expense of retirees who served their states for 35 years.
“You know the House of Assembly is just an extension of the executive, they are rubber stamps, so they just passed this law against the citizens, particularly the impoverished ones. I think that they should repeal these laws in all the states where they have passed. Any governor that has good intentions for his state should repeal that law because what these governors earn in four or eight years runs into billions of the Naira.
“You can’t govern any state in Nigeria, especially in the Niger Delta and remain poor. Once you govern any of these oil-bearing states, you are already a billionaire for life. So what are you using all these monies for? That is why I said it is immoral, and it is an aggression against the poor people of the state.
“Let us use this money to develop the state, to pay retirees. Infrastructural development is gone, we have forgotten about infrastructural development totally. A lot of things in the states are in chaos when it comes to infrastructure development.
“So, I implore the in-coming governor and the House of Assembly, the first thing they should do is to repeal these laws in the interest of Nigerians in order to earn the confidence of the people. We are hopeful that the new governors will do justice to that law.
“No governor should be entitled to pension because constitutionally, the position of the governor is not pensionable. So, it is against the constitution, we don’t have any moral right to do that.”
On his part, a human right activist, Barrister Yetunde Onaifa, told our correspondents that it is unfortunate to continue to pay ex-governors with the state resources, when millions of people were languishing in abject poverty.
“It is quite unfortunate that in Nigeria, we don’t look at the masses but rather we do what suits us and our families. If not, Nigeria cannot be languishing in abject poverty and people are busy creating jumbo pay for themselves.
“If you watch, they have worked in other places before and retired. They are not even supposed to have another pension. It is an aberration, but because we don’t have a country that has rule of law, that is why somebody will retire, take a government appointment and again get another pension.
“The governors have worked in their respective fields of endeavour and retired. So, they are being unfair to their respective states because if we keep sharing this money like that, at the end of the day, the allocation will just be for paying ex-governors.
“As far as I am concerned, that decision should be rescinded and the right thing should be done. We have a House of Assembly that can equally amend the law; laws are made to be amended when the need arises. I think the need has arisen for them to look at that law and amend it.
“As a governor, you have taken enough, and they still want to set aside money to be given to you again, it is an aberration that should not stand. If I have my way, I will completely abolish it, they don’t need it. Once you finish your tenure as a governor, go home, you have taken your own piece of the cake, so you go home with nothing,” she said.
Morality
Also, a cleric, Rev. Simon Agada, told Blueprint Weekend that he could not understand the morality of the allowances.
He said: “There are things that are expedient, but morally deficient. When you are talking of political leaders, elected officers who have been vested with the mandate to serve the people, a lot of hope has been placed on them.
“Let me now say here that while they were in service, when they have a tenure of either four years or maximum of eight years and when they were in service they were exposed to all benefits, which we refer to as perquisites of office, which include; free housing, free transport, free feeding, free medical services, free security and other benefits that are not known to the public and I think in their terms of appointment, they were not appointed, they were elected to serve and even while they were there, they had all these benefits at their disposal.
“Nobody queried them, they had the latitude to enjoy all these things to the fullest and incidentally to the disadvantage of the society or the electorates that elected them.
“However, come to think of it, we have workers that were employed with terms of appointment, of which on retirement, they are entitled to certain benefits like pensions and gratuities and these people will serve for nothing less than 35 years or being of 65 years of age.
“Now, let’s compare these two groups of people, the elected ones who have a maximum of eight years of tenure and those appointed serving the state for 35 years. And these people serving for 35 years, they have no right to free medical services, they have to pay from their meagre salaries, they have to buy whatever they want from their meagre salaries, but which those elected are enjoying free and when they want to leave they will want to part with humongous severance allowances, and nobody can question them, not only parting with all these huge allowances, but as soon as they leave office, they jump into another elected office.
“They will want to retire in the National Assembly as senators, members of the House of Representatives or even become ministers and they will still be earning their pensions illegally as former governors, former deputy governors or former speakers. That is illegal double earning, whereas those who served for 35 years or age 65 are not paid their gratuities. Most states owe pensioners arrears of pension and arrears of unpaid gratuities.”
Justification
However, a lawyer, Yushua Muhammad, in a chat with this reporter, justified the pension law for former governors of his state.
He said: “since the pension and severance packages enjoyed by ex-governors and their deputies are a creation of the law, there is no need to begrudge them. Kano state governor, Umar Abdullahi Ganduje, and his deputy, Nasiru Yusuf Gawuna, are entitled to the packages as stipulated by law just like their former colleagues.”