Opinion
Who endorsed President Buhari’s ‘APER’ forms? Part 1
By Tunde Olusunle
Emotions were mixed as we hurled our bags and boxes on our shoulders, shook hands, hugged one another and headed for the various motor parks, en route our various destinations. We had gotten so close knit with new friends we made within the preceding, mandatory one year National Youth Service Corps, (NYSC). In instances, some of these relationships had made virtual siblings of friendships. Our set produced notable personalities like Oby Ezekwesili, (former Education Minister); Sunny Togo Echono, (Executive Secretary of the Education Trust Fund, ETF) and Armstrong Idachaba, (former Director-General, National Broadcasting Commission, NBC). We also had Amaechi Elumelu, Assistant Inspector General of Police, (AIG); Tony Olofu, (Police Commissioner in-charge of Eastern Ports, Port Harcourt) and Dede Mabiaku, (protege of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, and established afrobeat artist himself).
Dennis Eboreime, (who rose to the topmost rungs of leadership in the United Bank for Africa, (UBA); Kingsley Jatto, a US-based realtor; Ibrahim Dikko, (a top shot in telecommunications) and Mathew Aligbe, (former Registrar, Federal Polytechnic, Owerri) were also in that NYSC batch. Dateline was July 1986, one month short of the first anniversary of the military regime of Ibrahim Babangida, which advent we heard on the airwaves of the Imo State Broadcasting Corporation, (IBC) August 27, 1985. We were on the playground of Alvan Ikoku College of Education, (AICE), Owerri which had been adapted into a “parade ground” for the purposes of paramilitary drills, a key component of the orientation regimen. Babangida and Company had just kicked out the 20-month old regime of Muhammadu Buhari, yes, this democratically-reincarnated Buhari, which was rapidly sliding into fascism.
Our minds were respectively burdened by the grim and gloomy realities waiting out there for us as young graduates. Prospects of white-collar jobs were already thinning, before we graduated. My mind indeed went straight back to Bode Sowande’s 1979 play, The Night Before, in which I previously acted, which highlighted the apprehensions and concerns of young university graduates on the eve of their convocation. We had schoolmates and friends who graduated before us, whose blistered feet were still pounding the inflamed tar and humid earth of un-smiling streets, in vain quest of engagement in whatever form. Here we were, poised to confront the same grim reality, the same wrenching gloom, like our earlier compatriots.
Some of us were going to get lucky as we returned to our home state, the erstwhile Kwara State. An unusually proactive bureaucracy at the time, had advised the military leadership in the state to mitigate a palpable unemployment crisis, by thinking outside the box. In a rare demonstration of pragmatism and political will, the government of the day terminated the contract appointments of all non-Nigerian instructors in its employ. Indians and Pakistanis variously taught mathematics and science subjects; Ghanaians, English, while Togolese and Beninoise, taught French languages. This opened a window for me to get a job as an “Education Officer.” I was spontaneously deployed to Ponyan a community in modern day Yagba East local government area, (LGA), in contemporary Kogi State, to teach English language and literature in English.
It turned out that Ponyan was the very first place I would sight a document which is abbreviated as, and famously called the APER form, very popular in the lexicon of the civil service. The full meaning of the acronym is: “Annual Performance Evaluation Report.” The private sector indeed has a similar appraisal template used for the assessment of its employees. The APER form has all manner of columns and boxes on a broad spectrum of indices, relating to personnel performance. These include: Key performance areas, self appraisal, performance analysis, performance ratings and counselling.
There are also provisions for comments and endorsements by the Head of Department, (HOD), of the officer being assessed, and the central supervising authority and the overall head of that institution or organisation, among others. Confirmation of appointments, salary adjustments, promotions, deployments to higher responsibilities and recommendation for training, are all influenced by how glossy or grimy your APER form is. I’m told it has worn a new name, the Personnel Management System, (PMS, sounds like Premium Motor Spirit), since November 2020. All extant parameters of assessment remain valid in the new form, notwithstanding. I should also note, that even at the milieu under discussion, Nigerians from other parts of the country, were on the staff of other states. The Principal of Oke-Oyi Secondary School to which I was posted, Basil Ikenazor, was from Anambra State!
At a retreat for members of the Federal Executive Council, (FEC), about a week ago, Buhari, Nigeria’s President, awarded his seven-and-half-year-old administration, multisectoral pass mark! I wish he had been more restrained in this vain-glorious acclamation, for a man whose more perceptive wife, Aisha, has repeatedly pleaded with Nigerians to excuse his failings and foibles. She was so very frank on one occasion, that she admitted to the affliction of her husband with “post traumatic stress disorder, (PTSD) as at when she got wedded to him. The condition she volunteered, has been her lifetime cross, ever since. Let’s hope Buhari was not a victim of an overzealous speechwriter.
Buhari applauded the endeavours of his dispensation in the areas of infrastructure, agriculture, economy, security, education, healthcare and anti-corruption, among others. He gleefully surmised that with the nationwide spread of infrastructural projects by his government, he had met the yearnings of Nigerians. His self-adulation was powered by perceived successes in the completion of some projects initiated by previous governments, and the initiation of new ones. The “Second Niger Bridge;” “Port Harcourt-Bonny Road;” “Abuja-Kaduna-Zaria-Kano Road” and “Lagos-Ibadan Expressway,” collectively dubbed “Legacy Projects,” principally inform the chest-thumping by the President.
Immediate past Kenyan President, Uhuru Kenyatta was guest of honour at the retreat. Buhari didn’t speak about some patently relegated, albeit all-important road projects, deserving of the same attention, as the “legacy” souvenirs. The very critical 338 kilometre East-West road traversing five oil-buoyant states in the Niger Delta region, flagged-off by the administration of Olusegun Obasanjo in 2006, remains uncompleted. Same is the story of the crucial North-South artery, the 270 kilometre Okene-Lokoja-Abuja road, also begun in 2006, amongst many others. Buhari’s administration also rejuvenated the moribund rail sector, availing Nigerians another travel option, different from the more popular road travel. The March 2022 terrorist attack on an Abuja-Kaduna shuttle train which culminated in the killing and abduction of travellers, however, has since dampened national enthusiasm for rail travel ever since.
Without any equivocation whatsoever, it is very obvious that infrastructural development is the sole strong point of the Buhari government. However, it is not the sole index for the holistic appraisal of his period in office. Fact is that his governorship has failed in grand style, in other sectors of our national life and aggregate wellbeing. And this is the gospel truth. Where do we begin from? Against the backdrop of his antecedents as an uncompromising battle-tested general, expectations were high about the decisive resolution of festering security challenges, on his assumption of office. The most disturbing scourge inherited from its predecessor, was the Boko Haram insurgency, in the North East of the country. Under the Buhari milieu, however, virtually every geopolitical zone is contending with one security hydra or the other.
Indeed, never in the history of Nigeria has the country’s vulnerability been as exposed and rubbished, as it has under Buhari. At a time in our political history when the world criticised the USA for posturing as “policeman of the world,” Nigeria was effectively the ultimate enforcer in West Africa. From Liberia to Sierra Leone and to Guinea, Nigerian troops were out there hoisting the national flag with merited aplomb. They commanded the recognition of the United Nations, (UN), and the world at large for novel initiatives in sub-regional peacekeeping. Since the advent of the Buhari years, however, the story has changed for the worse. From the the abduction of officers within their comfort zones in military installations, to watching terrorists violating the serenity of an airport and halting the takeoff of a flight, Nigeria’s security architecture has been serially bludgeoned.
A moving train has been attacked, travellers killed and abducted, while government has had to procure the services of civilian consultants to monitor and unravel leakages in its oil pipeline network! True, the Nigerian navy is primarily charged with the responsibility for the protection of our maritime security and natural resources. It needed third party intelligence, however, to come to terms with the reality of a devious decade-long pilferage of of crude oil, within its area of responsibility. This has long impacted Nigeria’s attainment of its daily quotas of crude oil export, and by extension drastically affected the nation’s earnings from sales of the product.
Grabby Fulani herdsmen have largely unsettled parts of the North Central, engendering recurring skirmishes between indigenous landowners and the Sahelian adventurers. Worst hit are Benue, Nasarawa and Taraba states. One time Chief of Army Staff, (COAS) and Defence Minister respectively, Theophilus Danjuma on Saturday re-echoed his former concerns about the complicity of the establishment in the worrisome security situation in the state and the country at large. He spoke at the installation of the new Aku Uka of Wukari, Taraba State, Manu Ishaku Ada Ali.
Danjuma, a war-tested general not given to flippancy or frivolities, expressed genuine fears about the sustained prosecution of a neo-colonial agenda by unrestrained foreign invaders. He advised Nigerians to brace up in self-defence, given the inexplicable failure, maybe complicity of government in this regard. Lives have been lost in hundreds, nay thousands, aborigines forcefully displaced from their homesteads and herded into camps for internally displaced persons, (IDPs), in their own home country! Subsistence and commercial farming have been savagely impaired and the earth-sustained local economy of the people, discombobulated. The tepid disposition of the federal government to the routing of the menace, has fuelled suspicions of acquiescence on the part of the state.
Swathes of Niger State, also in the North Central, and the luminous North West of the country are contemporary nests of kidnapping and banditry. Zamfara, Katsina and Kaduna states are the epicentres of this mortally dangerous specie of criminality. Seizures of highways even in broad daylight by gun-toting upstarts, abductions-for-ransom and the killings of the innocent, have become customary and emblematic of these areas. A flustered Aminu Masari, helmsman of Katsina, echoed Danjuma urging his constituents to defend themselves. Remember the emboldened audacity of these ragtag criminals in engaging in a firefight with personnel on advance party, to Buhari’s hometown, Daura, a few weeks back. That is how daring, how fearless these brigands have blossomed.
The news from the South East is not any inspiring. From Anambra, through Enugu and Imo states, the East has effectively metamorphosed into a functional abattoir. Here, unknown gunmen, who have won for themselves the acronym “UGM,” and similar bloodspilling ogres, reign supreme. Political adviser to former President Goodluck Jonathan, Ahmed Gulak; a former High Court Judge, Stanley Nnaji; and Sam Ndubuisi, professor and chief executive of Scientific Equipment Development Institute, (SEDI) were murdered on the streets of cities in the South East. Phillip Udala, a billionaire businessman and Chike Akunyili, medical doctor and spouse of the late amazon, Dora Akunyili, among others, were similarly extinguished in vivid daylight, in the East. Ifeanyi Ubah, a serving Senator, only a few weeks ago, survived assassination by the skin of the teeth. His convoy of vehicles was brutally attacked by gunmen, culminating in at least half a dozen deaths.
South easterners, in a manner of speaking, are in the eternal dilemma of adherence to pronouncements by state governments on one hand, as against “directives” from the “alternate government” of the “Indigenous Peoples of Biafra,” (IPOB), and it’s equally lawless ally, the “Eastern Security Network,” (ESN). IPOB and ESN, decide, decree and enforce days, dates and times people should be on the streets. They also determine when they must remain in their homes. On his recent visit to Imo State, Buhari was welcomed by vacant, echoing streets. The people complied with the pronouncement of IPOB, not to venture out of their homes to receive a President who they believe, loathes them with a passion. Violation of this faceless directive, could result in bloodshed. Such is the biting siege imposed on the region, which, expectedly, has impacted the socioeconomic regimen of the people, famous for business, innovation and industry.
Reports from the “Nigerian Security Tracker,” a project of the “Council on Foreign Relations of the USA, suggests that about 55,000 Nigerians have been killed since the inception of the Buhari regime. According to the report, non-state actors were responsible for these casualties between May 29, 2015 and October 15, 2022. Herders-farmers’ conflicts, altercations by religious groups, as well as attacks by insurgents and bandits, accounted for this wanton waste of invaluable resources. On the aggregate, about 20 Nigerian lives have been lost every single day since the coming of the outgoing government.
Tunde 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
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