In a twist of legislative maneuvre, the National Assembly on Wednesday finally approved a new and comprehensive pension package for past Nigerian leaders. The beneficiaries include past presidents, heads of the government of the federation, prime minister, vice presidents, presidents of the senate, and speakersß of the House of Representatives.
Accordingly, former military heads of state such as Generals Yakubu Gowon, Muhammadu Buhari, Ibrahim Babangida, Abdulsalami Abubakar and others who took over government in Nigeria through coups would now benefit from the new law, which was harmonized by the two chambers of the National Assembly.
Military Heads of Government were hitherto expunged from the list of former Nigeria leaders that were expected to benefit from remuneration for former presidents, heads of federal legislative Houses and chief justices from the list by the Senate.
Other beneficiaries of the new law as contained in a clean copy expected to be forwarded to the President for assent indicated that former military Heads of State are now part of the major beneficiaries of the new law as their spouses are expected to continue to enjoy the scheme till death.
However, past leaders that were impeached are excluded from benefiting from the new law.
Part of the new law states: “For the avoidance of doubt, the benefits stated in this bill shall not apply to persons removed from any of the offices referred to in this bill by the process of impeachment.”
Before the harmonized and approved Bill, the Senate had proposed to ensure that the enhanced pension scheme was to honour only past democratic leaders, thus the thrust of the earlier bill had been to ensure that only democratically elected former presidents are entitled to benefit from the pension package for the former Presidents.
In the wisdom of the Senate then, the law was to discourage other unconstitutional means of getting into power as it gave recognition to those elected to office only through the ballot box and not the barrel of a gun. However, the House of Representatives version that included the list of past military Heads of State was eventually adopted and harmonized under the name of “Heads of the Government of the Federation” in section 4 of the Act.
President of the Senate, David Mark had said while passing the Senate version of the Bill in March this year that the passage of the Bill was aimed at discouraging coups. Senator Mark who is going to be a beneficiary of the new law expressed gratitude to members of the National Assembly for the passage of the Bill to include Heads of Federal Legislative chambers as well as former Heads of State who were his colleagues in the army.
The new legislation has therefore added more money to the pension eligible former Nigeria leaders as they shall now be paid an amount recommended from time to time by the Revenue and Mobilization, Allocation and Fiscal Commission and approved by the National Assembly as up-keep allowance in addition to the pension entitlement under the 1999 constitution.
The upkeep entitlement is expected to be reviewed from time to time subject to the approval of the National Assembly
source:The Sun
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