A
move to enhance the remuneration of the country’s former presidents was
halted in the Senate last month when a bill that would have facilitated
it was crushed during the second reading. Also, former Chief Justices
of Nigeria, ex-Presidents of the Senate and ex-Speakers of the House of
Representatives were to benefit from the jumbo package. However, the
country’s former leaders, most of whom were military rulers, are already
well taken care of. We appreciate the killing of the bill, which was
passed by the fourth, fifth and sixth National Assemblies, but did not
enjoy the assent of two former presidents, Olusegun Obasanjo and the
late Umaru Yar’Adua.
Senate Leader, Victor Ndoma-Egba, in
his lead debate, said reintroducing the bill had become imperative in
view of what he perceived as a high degree of discomfort or economic
hardship being experienced by our ex-presidents. The ill-fated bill
would have repealed an extant law that provides a robust welfare package
for past military leaders who truncated the country’s democratic
trajectory. As some senators noted, two former presidents withheld their
assent to the bill; but it is curious that the National Assembly of the
2003 to 2007 and 2007 to 2011 sessions, which the Senate Leader was a
part of, did nothing to consummate the legislative process, contrary to
the dictates of the 1999 Constitution as amended. Section 58 (5) of the
Constitution, states: “Where the President withholds his assent and the
bill is again passed by each House by two-thirds majority, the bill
shall become law and the assent of the President shall not be required.”
Ndoma-Egba’s argument rankles, given
that no former president is known to be as impecunious or in dire
straits as he sought to present. Indeed, such jumbo financial
remuneration runs against the economic mood of the times when over 70
per cent of Nigerians live below the poverty line, and generations of
youths are without jobs, primarily due to many years of incompetent and
corrupt political leadership. Soaring unemployment has fostered a
community of social deviants — kidnappers, armed robbers, rapists and
internet fraudsters, otherwise known as Yahoo-Yahoo Boys.
One of the former presidents
purportedly suffering “economic discomfort,” as implied by the Senate
Leader’s account, is Obasanjo, who owns one of the biggest poultry farms
in the country. By every standard, he is a very rich man and is
apparently not in any financial stress. Also, Second Republic President,
Shehu Shagari, while in office, was an embodiment of modesty; he could
not have been so materialistic and profligate at the age of 89 to the
extent that what the state provides for him is no longer sufficient. If
at all such challenge exists, the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and
Fiscal Commission that is charged with the responsibility of fixing the
remunerations of public office holders, as espoused in Section 84 of the
Constitution, has not been found wanting in this regard.
Who is left out? Our conjecture,
therefore, is that the sponsors of the bill may have used these former
presidents as cover to secure life-long remunerations for the principal
officers of the National Assembly at public expense. It is clear that
each member of the legislature earns a severance package at the end of
each session and such terminal benefits are even rosier for principal
officers, which the defeated bill sought to cater for. In some other
climes, lawmaking is a part-time undertaking and legislators are paid
accordingly.
Petrified by the danger inherent in
youths roaming the streets without jobs, Obasanjo has repeatedly warned
of an impending revolution in the land, especially if the country’s
leaders do nothing urgently to address the scourge. This should be the
concern of sponsors of the discredited bill, who seem to act like Nero,
the Emperor who fiddled while Rome burnt. While the actual emoluments of
these lawmakers may not be known by outsiders, the charge that they
earn far more than some of their counterparts in more developed
economies of the world, amid Nigeria’s development challenges, should
bother them. The predilection for affluence at the expense of the state
or public treasury by this tiny few, which a remuneration hike for these
ex-Presidents would have achieved, is an attitude that must change for
the nation’s good.
How concerned are the lawmakers about
the fact that corruption has inexorably become part of the chemistry of
the Nigerian state without a serious effort to reverse the trend?
Collapsed infrastructure, such as dilapidated fuel refineries and the
resultant reliance on imported refined products; the shameful 3,300
megawatts of electricity generation in April 2013, in spite of billions
of dollars pumped into the sector since 1999; the consequent perennially
low capacity utilisation in our industries; the ghastly nature of
roads, and 7,000 abandoned capital projects, are critical national
exigencies that should deserve urgent legislative attention. Obviously,
enhanced emolument for former rulers is a mundane issue that falls
outside the realm of national priorities.
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