A civil rights advocacy group, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), has asked the 10th National Assembly to enact a law to repeal pension legislations for former governors who are serving in the Senate and the House of Representatives.
HURIWA, in a statement by its National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, Saturday, said it was criminal and corrupt for ex-governors who found their way into the National Assembly to earn double pay.
The group also asked state Houses of Assembly to repeal the life pension bill for their former governors and other ex-public officials. The states include Lagos, Akwa Ibom, Edo, Delta, Ekiti, Kano, Gombe, Yobe, Borno, Bauchi, Abia, Imo, Bayelsa, Oyo, Osun, Kwara, Ondo, Ebonyi, Rivers, Niger, Kogi and Katsina.
The group said that it was disturbing that the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, and 13 other senators would earn over N5.6 billion ex-governors’ pension and benefits for the duration of the 10th National Assembly.
Aside from former Governor of Ogun State, Gbenga Daniel, who requested that he be exempted from pension largesse, none of the other 14 senators has publicly recluse from binging on state’s lean resources.
Gbenga Daniel, the Senator representing Ogun East, governed Ogun State between 2003 and 2011.
Besides the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio (Akwa Ibom), other beneficiaries of ex-governors’ pensions are: Adams Oshiomhole (Edo), Dave Umahi (Ebonyi), Aminu Tambuwal (Sokoto), Ibrahim-Hassan Dankwambo (Gombe), Abdulaziz Yari (Zamfara), Aliyu Wammako (Sokoto), Orji Uzor Kalu (Abia), Seriake Dickson (Bayelsa), Adamu Aliero (Kebbi), Ibrahim Gaidam (Yobe), Danjuma Goje (Gombe) and Abubakar Sani Bello (Niger).
HURIWA said: “The 10th National Assembly led by the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, and House of Representatives’ Speaker, Tajudeen Abbas, must immediately enact a law to stop pensions for ex-governors who are in the parliament.
“It is criminal and corrupt for anyone to earn double pay and purloin the nation’s treasury funded by taxpayers’ money.
“The 10th NASS, which is unarguably a retirement home for former governors, should do better and expunge this selfish double earning for states to use the money for socio-economic and infrastructure development.
“Also, Akpabio and the other 12 ex-governors in the 10th National Assembly should act like Gbenga Daniel and publicly write the current governors of their states to stop pensions for them.”
