The Nigerian National Assembly is pushing to grant life pension for its presiding officers.
These include the Senate President, Deputy Senate President, Speaker of the House of Representatives and the Deputy Speaker.
Over N7.8 billion is already being spent to service the life pensions of all former Presidents, be it military or civilian, and their vices as enshrined in the 1999 connection (Section 84(5)), Daily Post reports.
And the proposal to add the principal officers of the National Assembly to this list has resurfaced after it was suspended the first time it came up following public outcry.
It was learnt that the current leadership of the National Assembly, comprising the Senate President, Ahmad Lawan; Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila; and their deputies may be the first to benefit.
The National Assembly’s Joint Special Ad Hoc Committee on the Review of the 1999 Constitution disclosed this on Wednesday.
The Committee presented its report, containing 68 recommendations in the respective chambers, and the proposal was one of them.
Recommendation 16 reads, “That the House does receive the report of the Special Ad-hoc Committee on the Review of the 1999 Constitution on a Bill for an Act to Alter the Provisions of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 to Provide Pension for Presiding Officers of the National Assembly; and for Related Matters.”
When the proposal was first raised during the Bukola Saraki and Yakubu Dogara-led 8th Assembly, it was rejected by Nigerians and some notable civil rights groups, such as the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP), who had described it as self-serving and despicable.
SERAP had further called on Saraki and Dogara to show leadership and refocus the National Assembly to perform their law-making functions.
The rights group was worried that this proposal was being made by some former governors in the Senate, who are already enjoying ‘pensions’ for serving as governors for eight years.
Meanwhile, Nigeria has relied on borrowing to fund its budgets and infrastructural projects as the country is broke. Also, many retired civil servants who worked for 35 years are often owed their pensions, which are largely peanuts. Many workers are also paid peanuts as salaries because of the country’s abysmal minimum wage.
