Opinion
Undeserving honour for a handy hangman
By Tunde Olusunle
Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria’s President, was not a happy man on Monday June 27, 2022. Students of “body language methodology of governance, administration and communication,” know what I mean. It was invented into the lexicon of contemporary Nigerian political discourse, following the ascendancy of the Buhari presidency, in 2015. It is a “theorem” which enables aides of the president and government functionaries, deduce from the non-verbal attitudes, dispositions and signs of their principal, what he expects them to do in every situation. The idea is to reinforce the fact of the president being a man of very few words, certified taciturn actually, who expects people to “borrow themselves brain,” as the Nigerian day-to-day expression, says. They are thus expected to get cracking on their briefs in whatever ways, without the benefit of a conversation or exchange of ideas in some form, with their principal. How this has profited the country in Buhari’s over seven years in office, is subject of another treatise.
At other times, Buhari indeed reinforced this characteristic of himself, in his public outings. A visiting French president, Emmanuel Macron in 2018, entertained a press conference in the State House, Buhari his host, flanking him. When the question about the nationwide menace of herdsmen was raised, Buhari looked the other way. It was so visible even on television. He surely was not comfortable with that poser. His spontaneous reaction spoke volumes. You should have also read his discomfiture as he sat in the state box at Eagle Square the other day, at the presidential primary of his political party, the All Progressives Congress, (APC). He wore this kind of “You guys get this thing done quickly so I can get out of here” visage, for most of the programme.
The night of Sunday June 26, 2022, Buhari received an unexpected correspondence from the immediate past Chief Justice of Nigeria, (CJN), Ibrahim Tanko Muhammad. He had notified the president in his mail, that he was retiring voluntarily from office, “with immediate effect,” an expression loaned from our several decades under military rulership. Muhammad pleaded faltering health as the grounds for excusing himself from office. Ordinarily, he was due for retirement in 2023, by which time he would have attained the retirement age of 70 years, for jurists in the Supreme Court of Nigeria. Professors in Nigerian universities are also given such latitude, against the backdrop of the peculiarity of their professions as human storehouses of irreplaceable knowledge, expertise and experience.
Muhammad’s decision caught Buhari by surprise. He had just returned from the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, (CHOGM) in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, a country which is fast displacing Nigeria as most preferred events destination in sub-saharan Africa. Tanko Muhammad was tactically procured early 2019, by functionaries of the Buhari administration. He was primed the foremost, statutory judicial enforcer of the re-election of Buhari, March 2019, two months away. It was glaring, from the abysmal, multisectoral failure of the subsisting administration which was voted into office in 2015, that Nigerians had totally lost patience with the regime. The party which produced the president, wouldn’t be humoured with a second term in office. Buhari’s strategists, all downstream beneficiaries of his government, spun a spurious narrative to force Muhammad’s predecessor, Walter Onnoghen to resign from office.
The fable was that Onnoghen was in bed with Buhari’s major opponent in the 2019 polls, Atiku Abubakar, of the Peoples’ Democratic Party, (PDP). Onnoghen was rumoured to have held an offshore meeting with Atiku at the latter’s Dubai abode after the PDP presidential primary, late 2018, which Atiku won. As the spin doctors couched it, Atiku would seek legal redress after being trounced by Buhari at the polls. Onnoghen would subsequently deploy his position as CJN and allied judicial instruments, to rule in favour of Atiku and enthrone him president.
As legal proceedings progressed, however, it was the APC government whose security operatives hounded the PDP “Situation Room,” which had all the results of that election, direct from every polling unit across the country. The Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC), hurriedly pulled down its server which stored the authentic poll results, swearing it never had one. Such was the frenzy Buhari’s associates got themselves into, attempting to legitimise the grossly illegitimate election results. History will yet unravel the complicity of many present public officials in that subterfuge when the time is right.
Tanko Muhammad was therefore elevated to upstage Onnoghen his senior colleague. He functioned first in an acting capacity, beginning from January 25, 2019, when he was first appointed. He became substantive CJN July 24, 2019 and concurrently Chairman, National Judicial Council, (NJC), after discharging his primary task, that of returning Buhari as president. His appearance before the senate for clearance saw him commit an unforgettable howler. His response to the question about whether the apex court under his jurisdiction will rely upon the merits of cases, or technicalities to adjudicate, gave him away as half-baked, possibly mediocre. His analogy about his suitability to “drive an aeroplane” or not, reinforced notions about his suspect capacity.
US-based Nigerian attorney, Emmanuel Ogebe, has proffered that “Tanko came to office with a palpable integrity deficit. Ogebe advanced this in his post-disengagement tribute to Muhammad, which he titled “Justice Tanko’s Resignation: End of an error.” What was to follow, Ogebe noted, “was further proof of his competency deficiency. The judge who couldn’t define “technicality” in his senate confirmation hearing, apparently was technically unfit to be Chief Justice of Nigeria,” Ogebe submitted. Sadly, Nigeria’s “rubber stamp” legislature, led by the never-to-be consensus presidential candidate of the APC for the 2023 polls, Ahmed Lawan, confirmed his nomination with aplomb. This was in total obeisance to the “body language” of the president. Not even the fact that Muhammad studied Islamic law and not conventional law, was questioned at that outing in the Senate.
At the inauguration of Muhammad’s successor, Olukayode Tajudeen Ariwoola, Buhari devoted ample time celebrating the outgone CJN. He noted he was reluctant to accept Tanko Muhammad’s correspondence, because he was confident the former CJN would outlast his own administration and retire December 31, 2023, months after his exit. Buhari extolled Muhammad’s dispensation for ensuring “landmark, jurisprudential and policy decisions by the Supreme Court.” Tanko was praised for dealing “firmly with the issue of reckless and indiscriminate grant of ex-parte orders, which was assuming serious dimensions.” History, Buhari observed, “will be kind to Justice Tanko Muhammad for his modest contributions to Nigeria’s judiciary, the strengthening of our democracy and national development.” He subsequently conferred on Muhammad, the second highest national honour, that of Grand Commander of the Order of the Niger, (GCON).
Tanko Muhammad’s stint as CJN, was dogged by controversies in various forms and shapes. Under his superintendence, the home of Mary Odili, the next in rank and seniority in the Supreme Court to Muhammad, was stormed by agents of government in Gestapo fashion, October 29, 2021. Whereas the stormtroopers pretended to be executing a search warrant, the raid was generally perceived to have been designed to maim and kill the target, Mary Odili. It re-echoed a similar invasion of the homes of some judges in 2016, in Abuja and Port Harcourt, respectively. The earlier raid was carried out by operatives of the State Security Services, (SSS).
For the first time in the history of the Supreme Court, a total of 14 out of 16 justices in the court, authored a jointly signed petition, days before Muhammad’s resignation. They decried abysmal working conditions under his leadership. They drew attention to the homelessness of many judges and the unsavoury conditions they had to work in. The judges listed non-replacement of their aged official vehicles; denial of training opportunities for capacity building and the decrepit condition of the Supreme Court clinic, among other challenges.
They highlighted the cancellation of their foreign summer holidays consistent with international best practices, whereas the CJN regularly obliged his family and personal aides, these privileges. Things as basic as non-payment of subscriptions for internet services and satellite television, also featured on the list of irritants of the Supreme Court Justices, under Tanko Muhammad’s leadership. The Justices equally complained of being forced to exit their chambers by 4pm every day, owing to frequent power outages and the skyrocketing costs of maintenance of diesel generators. Simply put, the correspondence was a tacit vote of no confidence in the leadership of the former CJN. Muhammad allegedly introduced a new tradition of judicial laziness into the operations of the Supreme Court. He was reputed as lacking the basic ability to comport himself to write well-reasoned judgments. Rather, he was notorious for commandeering cases, preempting and dictating outcomes and disallowing dissent.
Indeed in May this year, a former Supreme Court judge, Ejembi Eko, alluded to the festering sleaze in the judiciary, under Tanko Muhammad. In his valedictory address upon retirement, Ejembi Eko spoke about the “vandalisation of the budget of the judiciary, culminating in the lack of basic needs of justices.” He expressed his bewilderment about the pauperisation of the topmost rungs of the judiciary, despite remarkable increases in budgetary allocations. Eko invited the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, (EFCC), to investigate the accounts of the Supreme Court. Such has been the quantum rot and decay in the nation’s uppermost court in recent years, especially under the jurisdiction of Tanko Muhammad.
The former CJN reportedly spent recent weeks in recent months being variously scrutinised for all manner of malfeasance. There was a report to the effect that Muhammad was queried by the SSS over a $10 million bribe reportedly collected on his behalf by one of his children, for a favour requested by Aliyu Wamakko. The erstwhile governor of Sokoto State and ranking member of the upper parliament, who was said to have made the payment, reportedly squealed when his request was not being prioritized nor addressed.
June 22, 2021, Messrs Malcolm Omirhobo and Co, legal practitioners sent a correspondence to Muhammad, requesting for “certified true copies of certain public documents.” The attorneys said they were acting “pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act 2011.” Among others, they requested “proof of receipt of total funds disbursed by the National Judicial Council, (NJC), to the Supreme Court, since January 2019.” They equally requested the Financial Statements of Accounts of the Supreme Court; Proof of the Total Expenditure and Payment Vouchers processed by the organisation, since 2019. Omirhobo and Associates, equally requested information about Internally Generated Revenue within the period; Proof of Expenditure; Salary payments and so on.
Arising from the dust and whirlwind of petitions, complaints and controversies thrown up by Muhammad’s regime in the Supreme Court, the Senate has shown interest in interrogating the tenure of the former CJN. Senate committee chairman on judiciary, human rights and legal matters, Opeyemi Bamidele, brought this up as a “Matter of Urgent Public Importance,” on the floor of the uppper parliament, Tuesday June 28, 2022. Irrespective of Muhammad’s resignation, complaints against Muhammad will be investigated as part of efforts to restore the integrity and public confidence in the judiciary. Himself an attorney, Bamidele is concerned that at no time has the credibility of the judiciary being so mindlessly rubbed in the myd and rubbished as it has in recent years.
Almost immediately after the inauguration of Ariwoola as acting CJN, Monday June 27, 2022, the ever sleepless social media threw up a collage of photographs. A particular photo shot pitched the president’s mien at the inauguration of Tanko Muhammad three years ago, with his facial expression at Ariwoola’s. While it was an uncharacteristically bright, bubbly Mr President, flashing a gap-tooth smile of accomplishment at Muhammad’s swearing-in, it was a visibly, evidently dour, drawn president, who shook hands with Ariwoola. That sense of loss of a trusted ally, a handy hatchet man, was inscribed all over his face. Motion pictures of the event captured a president who almost couldn’t wait for press photographers to complete their job, so he could retire to his trademark closet. A new CJN from the south of the country for that matter, may be bad business ahead of 2023.
Sadly, history cannot be fair to Tanko Muhammad, the way the president desires, irrespective of the “GCON” necklace he was adorned with. His legacy of laziness, imprimatur of ineptitude and trenchant treachery, did not cover him in gloss at all. A very bitter Ogebe has advanced that: “The worst president of Nigeria appointed the worst Chief Justice of Nigeria…That Tanko would be a failure was expected. How disastrously he failed, was the surprise. Never in the history of Nigeria’s legal system have all 14 justices in the Supreme Court, petitioned the CJN this way.”
Hopefully, Tanko Muhammad will be guest of a number of intelligence and investigative agencies and bodies, in the coming weeks and months. That is hoping there wouldn’t be a reenactment of the “off the mic” episode during the House of Representatives inquisition into the affairs of the Niger Delta Development Commission, (NDDC), not too long ago. Such media trials have become the trademark of our corruption and crime-busting departments. And whether such bodies will be sufficiently courageous as to dispense appropriate penalties and sanctions, as deterrence for future offenders is another matter.
Olusunle, PhD, poet, journalist, scholar and author, is a Member of the Nigerian Guild of Editors, (NGE).
As an indigene of Kogi State from Ijumu Local Government, I am always concerned about any issue that has to do with Kogi State’s affairs and I do my best to be involved, even if modestly, in her development. I love my state and I love my people, without necessarily compromising my patriotism to Nigeria, my country.
For some time now, I have come to notice that certain dark interests, often political, like to project all that is negative about Kogi State with a glee that is symptomatic of zonked-out analysts.
The latest half-witted article by Tunde Olusunle on Kogi State and its immediate past Governor, Yahaya Bello, portrays the journalist as seemingly away with the fairies. I will hold forth about it in a bit.
I am not a member of the APC nor a beneficiary of Yahaya Bello’s political largesse while in office. In fact, I’m not a politician in the real sense of the word. I’m an entrepreneur.
The best selling comic play titled ‘Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again’ authored by Professor Olawale Gladstone Emmanuel Rotimi and published in 1977 best captures how to describe Tunde Olusunle as related to his recent article titled ‘Abeg, Where Is “White Lion?”‘
One would have assumed that at his age with decades of professional experience, he would have been circumspect about certain issues. Even if he wished to satisfy his paymasters who must have contracted him to pen trash about his state or an individual, he would have made an attempt not to fritter away whatever little honour he had left.
I know that the country is hard and some individuals whose best lives are behind them would crunch even on faeces just to survive another day, especially those in the category of pretending that all is still well with them when they are actually floundering financially – a typical tragedy of living in the illusion of past glory. That’s quite understandable.
The precis of Olusunle’s uninformed article is that it is a worthless vituperation of a frustrated and failed political wannabe whose attempts at political relevance in Kogi State have met with catastrophic denouement. I don’t want to bore the reader with bouquets of unsupported asseverations imputed by Olusunle against Yahaya Bello. Investing valuable time in such would be counter-productive. I just want to address the obvious elements of insanity in the article.
During the 2023 presidential election, a lot of the people who unleashed negative propaganda against candidate Bola Ahmed Tinubu did so out of implacable personal hatred for the man.
The hatred in their speeches and writings was so clear. It was aggressive hatred without substance. It was so bad that some people were praying for him to die! Many fake prophecies from agitated prophets saturated traditional and social media on a daily basis. But the man weathered all the storms, beat them silly and eventually emerged as Nigeria’s President.
Not that his detractors have stopped, but they have been decimated significantly by the shame they bear consequent upon his victory. Former President Muhammadu Buhari also suffered the same fate.
Buhari would be the first presidential candidate in Nigeria to read his own obituary while still alive. A sitting Governor then, Ayodele Fayose, took front-page advertorials in major newspapers in the country and added Buhari’s picture to the list of Nigeria’s dead presidents and heads of state.
He claimed that Buhari might not last even one year in office. Therefore, why burden the country with such a walking vegetable? The hatred was that bad! Buhari went ahead to complete eight years in office and departed healthier and younger than he came in.
Yahaya Bello is the latest victim of deliberate personal hatred and relentless blackmail by his detractors and those he has trumped in the slick, yet complex terrains of Kogi State politics. A lot of political cavilers in Kogi State have yet to come to terms with the divine intervention that produced Yahaya Bello in 2016.
Kogi’s ethnopolitical warlords who have arrogated to themselves the permanent mandate to govern the confluence state found themselves suddenly vanquished by higher terrestrial forces beyond human comprehension. They could not believe that Yahaya Bello, from where he came, could be such a candidate for divine benevolence.
They rebelled and kicked. From day one, they chose blackmail and crude propaganda as weapons of foul warfare. For these ignoble characters and their ubiquitous social media goons, every woman who suffered a miscarriage did so because of Yahaya Bello. If their dogs died, it was Yahaya Bello. If they failed to prepare well for an election and lost, Yahaya Bello was their ready scapegoat. It was a loathsome circle of certainty.
The hatred in Olusunle’s baseless article is poorly disguised, if at all. Authentic professional journalists base their submissions on hard, indubitable facts. They do not orchestrate a bum steer, as the Americans would say. But this is what someone who, to all intents and purposes, should be a respected veteran in the field of journalism has chosen to do for survival stipends.
His claims that Yahaya Bello is in hiding are particularly spurious and nauseating. I live in Abuja and I can confirm that Yahaya Bello has been in his Zone 4 residence for a long time. He has been seen observing Taraweeh and receiving guests for Iftar throughout the Ramadan period. He goes to the Mosque for Jumat prayers every Friday.
For goodness sake, the man left Abuja for Okene to celebrate Eid in the full glare of thousands of Kogites, and entertained hundreds of Muslim faithful and his political associates for Sallah before returning to Abuja two days later. He even travelled to Lagos to pay homage to President Bola Tinubu for the Eid-el Fitr celebrations. What a way to hide!
Olusunle claims that Yahaya Bello is on the run and hiding under a bed. My question is “For what in particular?” Security agencies are not the types to base their investigations and arrests on phoney allegations as all those raised in Olusunle’s mucky script are.
They don’t pay attention to hideous misinformation being peddled by discombobulated political midgets in desperate search for long-lost relevance.
Olusunle seems to be suffering from nomenclature attachment syndrome. Psychologists have impressed on us from time immemorial that a person’s name is more than just identification.
They have educated us that when we hear our names, it triggers a unique psychological response. In this case, we may be dealing with a syndrome called pervasive egosyntonic sadistic behaviour.
In Yoruba language, Olusunle means “Olu has burnt the house”. And the Yoruba say “orukọ ọmọ lo n ro ọmọ”, meaning a child’s name influences his/her behaviour.
But if Olu must burn anybody’s house, he should choose his father’s house to burn, not another person’s house of honour. Meanwhile, Kogi State is a house that no jackass can burn down.
Exacerbated insanity defines the character of purveyors of allegations that cannot be substantiated. To answer your question, writer Olusunle, White Lion is everywhere, going about his normal activities, and discerning Nigerians are aware. But blind, frustrated critics won’t find him.
– Olorunfemi Obadofin Braimoh, a security consultant and public affairs analyst, wrote from Abuja.
By Ehichioya Ezomon
While most Nigerians still clink wine glasses in toast to Abia State Governor Alex Otti for belling the monstrous cat of life pensions for former governors and deputy governors, three Abia ex-governors have punctuated Dr Otti’s enviable limelight, by denying drawing pensions, and the accompanying perquisites of office.
Under the repealed law, former governors and deputies were to be paid lifetime salaries; get houses in Abia and Abuja; receive 100 per cent of annual basic salaries of the incumbent governor and deputy; get two brand-new vehicles worth N20 million every four years; and have three police officers and two operatives of the Department of State Services (DSS), and cooks, stewards, drivers, and gardeners.
The denial by immediate past Governor Okezie Ikpeazu (2015-2023) came on March 20 – a day before Otti signed into law the bill repealing the pensions. A statement by Dr Ikpeazu’s chief press secretary, Onyebuchi Ememanka, refuted reports “mischievously couched to give the false impression” that Ikpeazu’s among former governors receiving pensions from Abia State.
Ememanka stated: “Dr Okezie Ikpeazu wishes to make it abundantly clear that since after handing over the reins of power as Governor of Abia State on May 29, 2023, he has neither requested for, nor received from the Abia State Government, any dime under any guise whatsoever, and has no intentions of doing so.
“Former Governor Ikpeazu has since moved on with his life and is currently engaged in other areas of interest to him and advises the Abia State Government and her various organs to face the business of governance and desist from engaging in needless media sensationalism. The general public should be properly guided, please.”
Former Senator and ex-Governor Theodore Orji (2007-2015) also debunked claims of benefiting from the pension largesse, saying on March 21 that, “he hasn’t received any pension, he hasn’t asked for it, and he’s not interested in it.” Orji spoke via his former chief liaison officer, Hon. Ifeanyi Umere.
Umere said: “Nobody should link Senator Orji with the said pension law because nobody has paid him any pension after leaving office as Governor. He transited from Governor to Senate and he made it a point of morality that he will not, and he didn’t ask for any pension or question anybody about it because he is not interested in it. He didn’t receive any pension from Okezie Ikpeazu and he didn’t pay anybody, too.”
And Sen. and former Governor Orji Uzor Kalu (1999-2007) – whose government established the pension law in 2001 – said he didn’t receive any pensions since 2007. One of Kalu’s aides was quoted: “As a former governor of the state, T. A. Orji did not pay him (Kalu) a dime as pension, and Okezie Ikpeazu continued in the same manner.”
Recall that Dr Kalu, fielding questions from journalists at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport (NAIA) in Abuja on February 20, 2017, distanced himself from the 108 ex-governors that a national daily claimed were “living off their states through pensions and other entitlements.”
As reported by Vanguard on February 21, 2017, Kalu said he hadn’t received “any payment, entitlements or privileges of any sort from his successors (Sen. Orji and Dr. Ikpeazu), adding that the Abia State government had “withheld and refused to pay his pensions and entitlements, making him the only ex-governor in the 36 states that does not receive pension.”
Kalu said on leaving government on May 29, 2007, he left behind “all the government vehicles and every other thing that belonged to the government,” and that, “none of the privileges, like security details or vehicles that accrue to former governors has been extended to him.”
Asked if he’s broke because of non-payment, and his next line of action, Kalu said: “It is not about being broke or not. The pension law of the state did not exclude me from being paid as expected. In fact, it is illegal, according to the law, to deny one his rights and privileges.”
Also reacting to the abolished pension benefits, former Deputy Governor Ude Chukwu, under the Ikpeazu regime, said: “Nobody has given me a dime. I am aware of the law. For me, it (the law) is as good as not being there. If all past governors said they have not been paid anything, what is the essence of the existence of the law?”
Relatedly, former Lagos State Governor and ex-minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola (SAN), has revealed that his monthly pension is N577,000, after eight years in office (2007-2015). Mr Fashola, appearing on ARISE TV programme, ‘Perspectives,’ on January 20, said:
“The benefit I get, I think, is a N577,000 monthly pension from Lagos State. So, in spite of all the stories that we got several billions of money (after leaving office), I’ve come out to deny that repeatedly. Well, I don’t know how long it lasts, but all I know is that I get N577,000 per month consistently,” without stating if he’d enjoyed the “full package” pre and post-effort by the Lagos State House of Assembly (LGHA) to halve the pensions in 2021.
The poser: If Otti’s predecessors in office denied receiving any pensions, why the Labour Party (LP) governor’s bravado to sign into law the pensions repeal bill passed by the Abia State House of Assembly (ABHA)? Was it to score political points by painting black Dr Ikpeazu of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Sen. Orji (PDP), and Sen. Kalu of All Progressives Congress (APC)?
Perhaps, Otti wanted to fulfil a campaign promise, and guard against any governor resurrecting the dead law in future. Signing the law on March 21, Otti stated: “Even before this new law came into place, a lot of people, who have followed our views in the national discuss (discourse), understand that we were not going to continue the practice of paying pensions and allowances to this set of former government officials.”
That said, pensions for former governors and deputy governors aren’t “illegal,” as the issue is perceived in the public. What Nigerians detest and question is the morality of and insensitivity in awarding huge severance pay, lifetime pensions, allowances and material benefits to former governors and deputies.
Some former governors-turned senators or ministers also receive emoluments in a couple of places: pensions from their states, and salaries and allowances from the National Assembly (NASS) or the Executive, against the rules that exempt farming as the only avenue to possibly earn extra pay, while boosting the country’s food production and security.
In 2023, some members of NASS were enticed by the mouth-watering pension packages for federal and state executives, and proposed same for the President and Deputy President of the Senate, and Speaker and Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives – an incentive for State Houses of Assembly to follow suit. But the bill was shot down due to public outcry.
In the oft-quoted Lagos High Court judgment of November 26, 2019, in suit no: FHC/L/CS/1497/2017, filed by Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP), Justice Oluremi Oguntoyinbo queried the legality or validity of pensions for former governors and deputy governors, but pushed the burden of discovery to the Attorney General of the Federation.
Justice Oguntoyinbo had differed from the position of then Attorney General Abubakar Malami (SAN) that, “the States’ laws duly passed cannot be challenged,” and said, “I do not agree with this line of argument by the Attorney General that he cannot challenge the States’ pension laws for former governors.”
“In my humble view, the AG should be interested in the legality or validity of any law in Nigeria and how such laws affect or will affect Nigerians, being the Chief Law Officer of the Federation,” the judge said, and then gave the following commands:
“AN ORDER of mandamus compelling and directing the Attorney General, AG, to urgently identify former governors and their deputies collecting pensions from their states and to seek full recovery of public funds from those involved.
“AN ORDER of mandamus compelling and directing the AG to urgently institute appropriate legal actions to challenge the legality of states’ laws permitting former governors, serving as senators and ministers to enjoy governors’ emoluments while drawing normal salaries and allowances in their new political offices.”
Based on the orders, SERAP asked President Bola Tinubu, in a letter on March 23, “to immediately obey,” to recover pensions collected by former governors, and to challenge the legality of states’ pension laws permitting those involved to collect such “outrageous pensions.”
Equally instructive is an Appeal Court ruling, in suit no. CA/A/810/2017, against the Kogi State Government seeking pensions and severance packages in the state, which’s referenced by Alex Enumah in an opinion piece, “Pension Laws for Ex-Govs: The Abia Example,” published by THISDAY on March 31, as follows:
“The court held that the fact that elected public office holders and political appointees were paid huge amounts of money as monthly salaries and other forms of allowances while in office makes it morally wrong for them to demand pensions, gratuities or severance allowances for holding such an office for four to eight years as the case may be.
“The three-man panel of the appellate court, which had Justice Emmanuel Agim, Justice Abubakar Datti Yahaya and Justice Tinuade Akomolafe-Wilson, submitted that it amounted to gross social injustice, and unjustified in the context of the nation’s present social realities.
“The lead judgment, which was delivered by Justice Agim (now JSC), said it was wicked and morally wrong for political office holders and political appointees, who helped themselves to public funds while in office, to claim entitlement to pension and severance allowances.
“He submitted that it was wrong for political appointees and elected public office holders, who do not work as long and as hard as career civil servants to quickly get paid huge severance allowances upon leaving office, in addition to the huge wealth they acquired while holding such offices and without having been subjected to any contributory pension schemes.”
So, controversies trail pensions for former governors and deputies not for being “illegal” but because they’re overbloated, and a huge drain on the lean resources of many states, which owe months and even years of backlogs to retirees, some of who spent over 35 years in service and retired into penury, as their pensions are withheld by governors, who are “qualified” for hefty pensions and adds-on for life, and even pay themselves upfront part of the packages before they leave office.
It’s reassuring though that former Governors Ikpeazu, Orji and Kalu have denied receiving pensions, and challenged Otti’s sweeping statement that, “we were not going to continue the practice of paying pensions and allowances to this set of former government officials.” But can hundreds of other former governors – accused of drawing huge pensions and entitlements from their states – emulate the Abia trio by disavowing the allegations against them? The ball, as they say, is in their court!
Mr Ezomon, Journalist and Media Consultant, writes from Lagos, Nigeria
By Ehichioya Ezomon
Abia State Governor Alex Otti’s the rave of the moment among his peer governors, and most Nigerians, for “infrastructural development,” and particularly for signing into law a Bill passed by the Abia State House of Assembly (ABHA) to repeal life pensions for former governors and deputy governors of the state.
Under the repealed law, former governors and deputies were paid lifetime salaries, and got houses in Abia and Abuja, prompting ex-Head of State and former President Olusegun Obasanjo – on a visit to Dr Otti to commend his novel move – to describe the life pension laws by state governors as “rascality” and “acts of daylight robbery,” and urged other governors to emulate the Otti example.
But did retired Gen. Obasanjo, Ph.D, also send similar entreaty to President Bola Tinubu and the National Assembly (NASS), to repeal pensions and entitlements for former presidents, vice presidents and heads of state? Or only former governors and deputies should curb their appetite for free money and materials after “retirement” from government?
Obasanjo’s advocacy should touch all former elected or appointed executive officeholders, as we shouldn’t have a “special breed” of Nigerians: former military heads of state, presidents, vice presidents, governors and deputy governors, who enjoy government’s freebies, and live in luxuries at the expense of toiling Nigerians in need of the bare essentials of life.
It’s as well to recall that in a valedictory session of the Federal Executive Council at the State House, Abuja, on May 24, 2023, then Vice President Yemi Osinbajo called for an upward review of pensions for former presidents and vice presidents.
Osinbajo, referencing President Muhammadu Buhari’s “personal integrity,” said: “Part of the problem with that is that sometimes, you and I end up getting the very short end of the stick. If you look at the laws today, our retirement benefits, yours (Buhari) will be N350,000 a month by law and mine will be N250,000 per month.
“Those, of course, as you can imagine, are very tiny amounts of money. And I think that one of the things that we must do is to, perhaps, see how we can amend that law so that I will not come to you in Daura (Buhari’s hometown in Katsina State) and ask for some of your bulls to sell in order to survive.”
As Sunday PUNCH findings, first reported on May 28, 2023, indicate, “severance packages for Buhari and Osinbajo, state governors and other political appointees leaving office in 2023 might cost the country about N63.45bn,” adding that, as stipulated by the Revenue Mobilisation and Fiscal Allocation Commission (RMAFC), “President Buhari will get a severance pay of N10.54m, which is 300 per cent of his annual basic salary, while Vice-President Osinbajo will receive N9.09m.”
In a manner of, “What a man can do, a woman can do it, and even better,” then First Lady, Mrs Aisha Buhari, also solicited increased out-of-office benefits for ex-presidents and vice presidents, and for the incorporation of former first ladies “among the beneficiaries.” She spoke on May 25, 2023, in Abuja, at the launch of a book, ‘The Journey of a Military Wife,’ written by Mrs Vickie Irabor, wife of then Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. Lucky Irabor (retd).
Mrs Buhari’s plea: “The Federal Government should consider us as people that need help not as magic makers. And on the privileges given to the former presidents of Nigeria, they should do more. It is still not enough considering what people go through in that house (Presidential Villa). And at the same time, I want them to incorporate women, the former first ladies, among the beneficiaries.”
Many Nigerians have lent voices to the Otti gesture, especially coming at an time of economic strangulation of the average and below-average citizens since the advent of the Tinubu administration, following the withdrawal of subsidy on petrol, and floating the Naira, which’s crashed against major foreign currencies, and sent inflation and the cost of living sky-high.
The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has asked President Tinubu to swiftly obey a court judgment, which orders the Federal Government to recover pensions collected by former governors, and to challenge the legality of states’ pension laws permitting those involved to collect such “outrageous pensions.”
Following a SERAP suit no: FHC/L/CS/1497/2017, Justice Oluremi Oguntoyinbo in a 20-page judgment on November 26, 2019, granted “AN ORDER of mandamus compelling and directing the Attorney General, AG, to urgently identify former governors and their deputies collecting pensions from their states and to seek full recovery of public funds from those involved.”
“Justice Oguntoyinbo also granted ‘AN ORDER of mandamus compelling and directing the AG to urgently institute appropriate legal actions to challenge the legality of states’ laws permitting former governors, serving as senators and ministers to enjoy governors’ emoluments while drawing normal salaries and allowances in their new political offices.'”
Then Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN), had argued that “the States’ laws duly passed cannot be challenged.” But Justice Oguntoyinbo differed, saying, “I do not agree with this line of argument by the Attorney General that he cannot challenge the States’ pension laws for former governors.”
“In my humble view, the AG should be interested in the legality or validity of any law in Nigeria and how such laws affect or will affect Nigerians, being the Chief Law Officer of the Federation,” the judge said, adding, “I have considered SERAP’s arguments that it is concerned about the attendant consequences that are manifesting on the public workers and pensioners of the states who have been refused salaries and pensions running into several months on the excuse of non-availability of state resources to pay them.”
Justice Oguntoyinbo didn’t expressly pronounce on the legality of awarding life pensions to former governors and deputy governors. Perhaps, the plaintiff, SERAP, didn’t include that in its averments and prayers. Which somehow left the judge to push the responsibility to the Attorney General – “being the Chief Law Officer of the Federation” – of finding out the “legality or validity of any law in Nigeria and how such laws affect or will affect Nigerians.”
But the National Industrial Court – as posted on the African Law eJournal on March 25, 2020 – had ruled that pensions for former governors and deputy governors are legal, as nothing in the amended 1999 Constitution of Nigeria precludes or prevents state houses of assembly from enacting laws to give such benefits to former state chief executives.
Michael Dugeri of University of Ottawa, Canada, posted the court’s ruling in the case of Incorporated Trustees of Human Development Initiatives & 39 Others v. Governor of Abia State & 73 Others, which borders on “legal validity of state pensions laws for political office holders in Nigeria.”
“The National Industrial Court, in this case, was invited to determine the question of whether any law, especially by the State Houses of Assembly, that stipulates pension of such public officials already covered by the constitutional mandate of the Revenue Mobilization, Allocation & Fiscal Commission (RMAFC), is ultra vires, null and void. The Court answered in the negative,” the report said.
Yet, as first reported by Vanguard on March 24, SERAP, while noting inaction by the Buhari administration on the Justice Oguntoyinbo judgment, urges President Tinubu, in a March 23 letter by its Deputy Director, Kolawole Oluwadare, “to emulate the good example of Governor Otti by urgently obeying the judgment.”
“Unless the judgment is immediately obeyed, former governors and their deputies, including those now serving as ministers in your administration and members of the National Assembly who receive pensions, would continue to evade justice for their actions,” SERAP says.
“Immediately obeying the judgment would show the sovereignty of the rule of law in Nigeria and go a long way in protecting the integrity of the country’s legal system. Obeying the judgment would also show you (Tinubu) as a defender of the Nigerian Constitution of 1999 (as amended), the rule of law, and public interest within government,” SERAP adds.
SERAP lists former governors, “who continue to collect double emoluments and large severance benefits” from 22 states, including Lagos, Akwa Ibom, Edo, Delta, Ekiti, Kano, Gombe, Yobe, Borno, Bauchi, Abia, Imo, Bayelsa, Oyo, Osun, Kwara, Ondo, Ebonyi, Rivers, Niger, Kogi, and Katsina.
As reported by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on March 20, the Abia pensions repeal law isn’t the first, as a few states had moved to abolish the law, but “many states showed nonchalant attitude toward doing so.” Still, the “Abia State Governors and Deputy Governors’ (Repeal) Law 2024,” which took effect immediately on Thursday, March 21, 2024, after Governor Otti signed it, forecloses former governors and deputy governors earning pensions.
But did the Abia repealed pensions law include other perquisites of office, which make the pensions per se to look like pocket money for a boarding-house student, who doesn’t really need extra money, as their parents or guardians have settled accommodation, feeding and provisions for them?
This and more will be explored in part 2 of the series, amid denial by two former governors of Abia State, Sen. Theodore Orji and Dr Okezie Ikpeazu, of receiving pensions since they left office, even as Governor Otti continues to enjoy the limelight of abolishing pensions for former governors and deputy governors of Abia State!
Mr Ezomon, Journalist and Media Consultant, writes from Lagos, Nigeria
-
Crime6 months agoPolice nabs Killer of Varsity Lecturer in Niger
-
News3 months agoFCT-IRS tells socialite Aisha Achimugu not to forget to file her annual returns
-
News From Kogi5 months agoINEC cancells election in 67 polling units in Ogori-Magongo in Kogi
-
Appointment7 months agoTinubu names El-Rufai, Tope Fasua, others in New appointments
-
News7 months agoIPOB: Simon Ekpa gives reason for seperatists clamour for Biafra
-
News From Kogi8 months agoEchocho Challenges Tribunal Judgment ordering rerun in 94 polling units
-
Metro4 weeks ago‘Listing Simon Ekpa among wanted persons by Nigeria military is rascality, intimidation’
-
News3 months agoKingmakers of Igu/ Koton-Karfe dare Bello, urge him to reverse deposition of Ohimege-Igu