The other day, it was mooted that the National Assembly had constitution amendment in the works wherein it was proposed that politicians in the category of Senate President, Deputy Senate President, Speakers and their deputies should earn life pensions. Accoirng to reports, it was part of the recommendations of the joint National Assembly committee  on the review of the 1999 Constitution. Already, the Constitution has a provision in Section 84(5) for life pension for President and Vice-President, a provision that now draws   N7.8 billion annually from the kitty. The pension matter was one of the 64 recommendations presented by the committee.  Provisions of the Constitution on the matter read thus: “Any person who has held office as President or Vice-President shall be entitled to pension for life at a rate equivalent to the annual salary of the incumbent President or Vice-President: Provided that such a person was not removed from office by the process of impeachment or for breach of any provisions of this Constitution.”

I understand that all former Heads of State, including those who came into office by force, enjoy that provision. That may not be envisaged by the Constitution, but it seems to have come to stay, more so when it may be difficult to prove it or the authorities would have found a convenient way to implement it without raising an eyebrow. Now the National Assembly wants to add its own principal officers to the list of beneficiaries. The implication is that this category of officers would begin to enjoy life pensions like their colleagues in the executive.

There have been protests by civil society groups who have said it is immoral for the members to make their principal officers enjoy pensions. Such officers spend four years in office, at the maximum, yet those who have served the nation for 25 years do not enjoy such pensions. It is ironical that a nation whose pensioners fall and die in verification queues would recommend such pensions for elected officers. When President Olusegun Obasanjo’s finance minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, introduced contributory pensions in 2004, it was to mitigate the scandalous pension situation in the country. Government could not meet its obligations in payment of pensions at the local government, state and federal levels. People were owed at the all the levels. Lamentations grew on the matter such that government tended to be hamstrung to pay as it should. It was just impossible to oblige people their pensions. The government made a law that made for contributory pensions, where employers and employees paid the money together. Pension deductions are handed to pension managers who trade with the money in approved security instruments as a means to grow the money for the owners. The intention is for them not to retire into penury, and perhaps die in anguish. Although inflation has a way of making nonsense of such plans just as it does to insurance, yet it serves as the most viable alternative as respite for a nation that literally watched its retired people die in anguish.

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If the intended pension for principal officers of NASS is to operate on a contributory basis, then I have no grouse on the matter, and civil society groups ought not to make a mountain of a molehill. There are clear indications that the National Assembly simply wants to expand the scope of Section 85 of the 1999 Constitution. There has been  hue and cry over the earnings of members of the National Assembly. The belief is that they earn more than their counterparts  in other parts of the world such it would be overkill to add life pension to the matter. It amounts to prodigal expenditure for someone to stay in office for four years and receive pension for life. The erroneous impression is obviously that the nation is so affluent that it does not know what to do with its resources. That, of course, cannot be true for a country where frequent university teachers’ strike has become a norm rather than an aberration. The infrastructural deficits that stare us in the face are pointers that government can do better with public expenditure rather than such a parochial one.

Governor Hope Uzodimma had to reverse an aberration he met in office where a large chunk of state funds would have been expended in building houses, purchase of vehicles and general maintenance of past governors of the state. He said the state would bleed financially, if he continued to implement such perks of office. Those perks still subsist in some states like Lagos, Akwa Ibom and others, where past governors get new cars every year or two, have houses built for them in choice places, offshore medical attention, and other such goodies. In that matter, states did not consider their level of income in muscling those laws through the House of Assembly but when it comes to minimum wage, some of them insist that their resources are too low. Some states still bleed in maintaining their past leaders and some categories of officers of their Assembly.

Members of the National Assembly may have been prodded to embark on the amendment on account of what they have seen at the state level that have far less money than the Federal Government. Whatever has propelled this move is antithetical to the  growth of Nigeria. It detracts from the true essence of politics, which is service. Politics has increasingly been made attractive such that people do everything to get into office. Governors should take a cue from Uzodimma and save their states from the self-inflicted financial depletion resulting from maintenance of former office holders, except it is initiated as a contributory process. The argument that the move is to make them look away from pilfering public funds falls flat in the face of skeletons that emerge from their cupboards when they vacate office. This is not to say that the states should turn their back on those who have served at certain levels, but to give them life pensions gives the erroneous impression that the nation is too rich to worry about how it spends money.