Enugu road to Golgotha

First, a statement of intent: It is consoling that the Enugu State House of Assembly has shelved parliamentary processing of a highly controversial law, the Gubernatorial Pension Bill, 2021 that scaled first reading by its members recently. Leading members of the state legislature seem to suggest, however, that further groundwork was needed before the proposed law is brought back for re-processing, whereas the bill is thoroughly odious and ought to be discarded outright. Returning that piece of legislation in whatever form is unacceptable and we must insist on it being dumped altogether.

The Enugu lawmakers had on 12th March ticked off on first reading the bill prescribing life pension for former governors and deputy governors in the state, with bonus provisions for their close dependents. This was despite that the demands the controversial legislation made on the common treasury were so outrageous you would wonder what public interest considerations informed the articulation ab initio. Extravagant pension for ex-office holders is a route to economic Golgotha from which many states of this federation had pulled back, and it is curious what freshly attracted Enugu leaders to seek to tread that path.

Sponsored by House Majority Leader Ikechukwu Ezeugwu, the proposed law sought to appropriate 300 per cent of a governor’s annual basic salary from the state treasury for sundry benefits he should enjoy after leaving office. Added to a yearly basic pay, a former governor would get free medical services for life, house maintenance allowance, three vehicles to be replaced every four years, and funds for salary plus allowances for a personal assistant on Grade Level 14 as well as five domestic staff. The bill further prescribed “such other gratuity or allowances as may be provided by any other law” other than what was therein stated.

In the draft law, provisions were also made for a former deputy governor to get 200 percent of his annual basic pay as house allowance, vehicle allowance and yearly salary for three domestic staff. He was also entitled to two vehicles to be replaced every four years and free medical services for life.    

But you haven’t seen the outlandish allowances yet. Besides the ex-governor in person, his wife was entitled to N12million annually for medicals provided she was married to the governor while in office. An ex-deputy governor’s wife was entitled to N6million yearly for same expenditure head. The bill also guaranteed post-humous expenses of an ex-governor and deputy governor, including financial responsibility for their burial. Section Six of the draft law provided inter alia: “Where a former governor or former deputy dies, the state government shall make adequate arrangement and bear the financial responsibility for his burial. It shall also pay a condolence allowance of a sum equivalent to the annual basic salary of the incumbent to the next of kin.”

That was the general frame of the bill Enugu lawmakers processed through first reading on 12th March and had slated for second reading on 16th March but for public uproar that compelled the draft law being stepped down. Among vocal objectors was the socio-political Save Enugu Group (SEG), which noted that for a country where people work in civil services for over 30 years and struggle to get post-retirement doles, it was repugnant that a governor / deputy governor who served eight years or less would be so copiously provisioned in life and death to the point of being buried at state expense and the next of kin being paid vicarious emoluments thereafter. Others like civil society Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) accused Enugu political leaders of abuse of office, saying rather than sponsor bills that would enhance the access of children in the state to quality education, they were busy taking advantage of their entrusted positions to push laws that would secure them large severance benefits. 

When another group, Concerned Youths in Enugu State, took their protest to the state assembly, House Speaker Edward Ubosi pledged lawmakers’ commitment to work in the interest of the people of the state and not enact laws that would impede collective development. “We are aware of the controversy and mixed reactions being generated by the  pension bill. We shall look critically at the issues raised by members of the public,” he said, adding that stepping down the draft would enable the assembly to scrutinise it and delete unwanted provisions while adding necessary ones. He specified that former governors serving as senators would not benefit from the pension scheme, while spouses of ex-executives would as well not benefit because the Constitution did not recognise them. Earlier, Majority Leader Ezeugwu who sponsored the legislation said assembly members would be guided by views of their constituents in consideration of the bill, adding that a public hearing would be held to allow for citizens’ inputs. 

“(Enugu pension): It is confounding that a state with such self-confessed challenges harboured a governorship pension deal so prodigal that purported efforts at saving costs…seem like prodigality on steroids.”

The whole point to be made, however, is that this proposed legislation isn’t worth all that effort and should just be incinerated. Apologists of the draft law argued that it was a species of the Enugu State Gubernatorial Pension Law, 2007, which it was aimed at repealing and substitute with ‘cost-saving’ amended provisions. But if the provisions in this new draft are remedial, then the old law is overly grotesque and it is high time it was scrapped from the statute books and efforts at tweaking it discarded. 

Actually, scrapping the entire genre of gubernatorial pension law in Enugu is overdue because incumbent State Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi once decried huge pension and gratuity burden that successive administrations had been battling with since the state’s creation, noting that Enugu had the highest pension burden in the Southeast. Speaking at a Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) correspondents’ chapel forum at the state capital in December 2016, Ugwuanyi said: “The effect of pension and gratuities on us are so high and more than any other state in the region, and this arises from the status of the Coal City as the headquarters of the former eastern region. Today, there is no money to meet some of these obligations and many more, but the masses do not want to hear that.” The governor lamented infrastructure deficit in the state, which he acknowledged had some of the worst rural road networks with more than 47 communities largely inaccessible due to absence of link roads, culverts and bridges. He further said the landscape of  some rural communities was so bad that people in those areas do not bury their dead during rainy season.

It is confounding that a state with such self-confessed challenges harboured a governorship pension deal so prodigal that purported efforts at saving costs by way of an amendment law seem like prodigality on steroids. And that is besides the fact that many states have dumped pensions for former governors – a cost line they considered to be an avoidable drainpipe on the common treasury. Among others, Zamfara used to have a law that provisioned N10million monthly upkeep allowance for an ex-governor, but incumbent Governor Bello Matawalle dumped that law saying no ex-governor was poor considering the perks of office that had been enjoyed, in most cases for eight years. Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu last November submitted a bill to the state House of Assembly for repeal of a 2007 law that prescribed pension for ex-governors and their deputies; he said it was an initiative to “keep the cost of governance low and to signal selflessness in public service.” His Imo counterpart, Governor Hope Uzodinma, abolished pension for former top political office holders because only a privileged few benefitted and some N1.2billion could be saved annually and re-channelled into people-oriented projects.

Blunt truth is: Enugu people cannot afford pension at any amount for former governors and deputy governors, and the state leadership should just scrap the deal altogether rather than rework legislation in purported cost-saving bid.