The Senate, last week, stirred the hornets' nest when it voted overwhelmingly for life pension for its principal officers in the ongoing amendment to the 1999 Constitution. OLAJIDE OMOJOLOMOJU looks at the controversy trailing that decision.
Political actors in Nigeria and controversy seem to be Siamese twins. Controversy is like second nature to politicians in this country, in fact they thrive on it, from the topmost political office holder to the lowest in the ladder, and they have remained controversial just as well as their policies and actions.
This perhaps explains the controversial decisions the nation's lawmakers, especially at the National Assembly have been churning out. The latest of which last week was the overwhelming voting by the Senate in favour of the recommendation seeking life pension for the principal officers of the National Assembly, in the ongoing tinkering with the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria (as amended).
The amendment, seeking to alter section 84, is contained in a new subsection 5a, clause 8 which reads: "Any person who has held office as President or Deputy President of the Senate, Speaker or Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, shall be entitled to pension for life at a rate equivalent to the annual salary of the incumbent President or Deputy President of the Senate, Speaker or Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives."
It beats political analysts how and when this clause was smuggled into the major areas begging for amendment in the country's legal code. Rejecting important sections that almost every Nigerian hold dear, like the one seeking for financial autonomy for and direct payment to the local government councils from the Consolidated Revenue Fund among many others, the senators overwhelmingly voted in support of life pension for principal officers of the National Assembly.
This was apart from the fact that some of the occupants of the offices, to wit: Senate President, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Deputy Senate President and Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, are already enjoying some pensions from their previous endeavours.
Take the case of the Senate President, David Mark, for example, he is an Army pensioner, having retired from the Nigerian Army as a Brigadier-General. He is entitled to his pension for life from the Army, even while he continues to receive jumbo salary as a federal lawmaker. If this amendment scales through, it simply means he would be receiving pension from both the Army and the National Assembly for life!
Since the overwhelming vote for this clause, analysts have continued to condemn it, describing it as wrong, indefensible and reprehensible.
To a school of thought, the review exercise was supposed to have elevated the senators from the level of pedestal lawmaking to strengthening the nation's nascent democracy, but the Senate Committee on the Review of the Constitution, headed by Ike Ekweremadu came short of the expectations.
The school of thought felt that instead of delving into issues of germane national importance, the lawmakers turned the exercise into self glorification. Political analysts believed that what the Senate did last week was to re-introduce through the back door what was thrown out a few weeks ago, when the upper legislative chamber attempted to increase the remuneration of former Presidents.
A bill passed to this effect by the National Assembly in two previous sessions did not receive the required Presidential assent.
At the end of the Senate voting exercise last week, the Senate President, Mark, said that the voting was a historic exercise in the history of democracy in Nigeria.
His words: "Today is a historic day in the history of democracy in this country. We have voted in what we believe and we voted for those issues that we think will ensure that democracy continues to mature and take a firm root in this country.
Whatever emotions or sentiments people had to express we put them in practical terms." More worrisome is the fact that if this amendment sees the light of the day and becomes law, it will take retroactive effect, thus giving no fewer than 16 former principal officers of the National Assembly, dating back to the aborted Third Republic of the Ibrahim Babangida military era of 1992/1993 the life pension benefit.
Already, there was a furore ongoing over the jumbo pay packet of the federal lawmakers, which had attracted outrage from concerned Nigerians.
A report last week by the London-based Economist magazine reportedly put the average earning of a Nigerian senator, excluding basic salaries, at N182 million while a member of the House of Representatives takes home N127 million per annum. The beneficiaries of the obnoxious amendment earn more, with the Senate President going home with N150 million every quarter or N1 billion annually.
This excessive and unjustifiable earning is in a country where the per capital income is just $2,700 or equivalent of N432,000. A breakdown of lawmaker earnings across the world revealed that Nigerian federal legislators with a basic salary of $189,500 per annum (N30.6m) were the highest paid lawmakers in the world. The report also looked at the ratio of the salaries against the Gross Domestic Product, GDP, per person of each country.
The basic salary of a Nigerian lawmaker, excluding allowances is 116 times the GDP per person of $1,600. Ironically, Kenya, which ranked second highest paid lawmakers in the world, earned only 48 per cent of what the Nigerian lawmaker earns.
A breakdown of the details of the annual salaries of lawmakers in other countries are as follows: Ghana, $46,500; Indonesia, $65,800; Thailand, $43,800; India, $11,200; Italy, $182,000; Bangladesh, $4,000; Israel, $114,800; Hong Kong, $130,000; Japan, $149,700; and Singapore, $154,000. While the Nigerian economy is not larger than $300 billion, Nigerian federal lawmakers earn far more than their United States of America, USA, counterparts where the economy is in the region of $15 trillion and per capita income of $46,350 or equivalent of N7.4 million.
It is therefore, according to political observers, smacks of insensitivity of the highest order and selfishness on the part of ranking federal lawmakers, some of who has been in the corridors of powers for more than 15 years and have also been in the present dispensation since 1999, to position themselves to enjoy life pension, when over 70 per cent of the Nigerian population live below the poverty line.
Perhaps, it is pertinent to compare the legislature pension system in America with what the federal lawmakers in Nigeria are proposing. In the US, lawmakers compulsorily must contribute a percentage of their earnings as pension when they are in the Congress and Senate.
Apart from this, before a lawmaker in the US could qualify for pension, he must have attained the age of 60 years or in the alternative must have put in 20 years in the Congress, if per adventure they retire at the age of 50 years.
The pertinent question the senators need to provide answer to is: Why should lawmakers, including their principal officers, who do not contribute any percentage of their salaries to any pension scheme, expect to be paid from the treasury after retiring from an assignment, which at best should be a parttime job?
Another angle to the proposed amendment is the unnecessary and unduly increase in the cost of governance, which is already on the high side, as the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, has alleged that the National Assembly, made up of just 469 members, consumes 25 per cent of the federal revenue.
The proposed amendment, if approved and passed into law, would also create unhealthy rivalry and bitter political contests in both chambers of the National Assembly among the ranks of the lawmakers.
This is because every lawmaker would aspire to become a principal officer of either of the chambers by all means, thus leading to unnecessary heating up of the polity, while in the meantime, the purpose for which the lawmakers are elected would now be relegated to the back burners.
Meanwhile, a member of the Kaduna State House of Assembly, Alhaji Muhammed Ali, has condemned the Senate's decision to provide for life pension for its principal officers, describing the decision as self-seeking. He said: ''I don't think they deserve it, judging from the kind of money they are earning at the expense of taxpayers.
I think they are asking too much, Nigeria belongs to all of us. We are only opportune to be where we are. The action of the Senate is unacceptable."
Human rights lawyer, Mr. Bamidele Aturu, lamented the wide gulf between the earnings of the citizens and their legislators, whom he described as "the idlest, yet earn the most in the world."
He said many states are yet to pay the N18,000 stipulated as the minimum wage in the National Minimum Wage Act, saying: "We are running a parody of democracy in this country. It is a democracy for the rich. The people are getting poorer for building a nation, while the politicians are getting richer for doing nothing.
Those who are not creating wealth in the country are sitting on the wealth of the people, and those who are creating the wealth, the workers, are being paid peanuts." The National Publicity Secretary of the United Progressive Party, UPP, Chief Ogbuehi Dike, asked the National Assembly to jettison the idea totally.
He said that most NASS leaders had worked and retired elsewhere and did not need to get another pension, adding: "You cannot come and work for four years or eight years and you will be asking for life pension. It will not do a country like Nigeria any good because our economy is not strong enough for such venture."
Also a non-governmental organisation, The League of Patriotic and Progressive Youths, also called on the Senate to reverse itself on the controversial decision. Speaking through its National Coordinator Asuzu Echezona, the group said that the proposal was "undemocratic, and defeated the essence of representative democracy," and advised the Senate to redeem its image in the eyes of Nigerians by rescinding the decision."
Will the National Assembly have its way and push through this unpopular proposed amendment? Or will Nigerians stand resolute and deny the lawmakers their self-serving proposal that would end up pauperising Nigerians more than they have been impoverished? Time will tell!
National Mirror
Controversy is just gonna be useless that's all. That is not what we should be talking about right now..That has to change.