PMB and PENCOM

By Sanya Oni

Trust Senate President Ahmad Lawan to wish to shrug it off as mere ‘storm’ in a teacup, it’s hard not to see the signals of a looming battle as the Senate moves to confirm Aisha Umar as the Director General of the Pension Commission in the coming days. For those who might want to finger the Senate Minority Leader Eyinnaya Abaribe as setting off the strange fires, they only need to go back in time to 2016 when President Muhammadu Buhari took out the board of PENCOM and put a sole administrator in charge.

Expectedly, Abaribe’s grouse was that Aisha Umar, from the Northeast, was picked to replace Chinelo Anohu-Amazu from the Southeast. Citing Section 20(1) and (2) of the National Pension Commission Act 2014 which read: “in the event of a vacancy, the president shall appoint replacement from the geo-political zone of the immediate past member that vacated office to complete the remaining tenure”, he insisted that the president’s action should be deemed as ultra vires.

Now, let’s go back a little bit. In December 2012, Anohu-Amazu was appointed into that position in acting capacity. That was after the exit of pioneer helmsman Muhammed K. Ahmad. It would take a year and few months for her to be confirmed as substantive DG in 2014. Interestingly, that process itself was not without a tinge of controversy chief of which was that shed lacked the cognate experience for the top job as the position required 20 years of working experience – which she then lacked. In the end, the Senate in its wisdom had to lower the age requirement from 20 to 15 years the amended law if only to pave the way for her appointment.

Her problem, as it turned out, had only just about begun. Indeed, her tenure was marked by allegations of conflict of interests, breaches and violations of Public Procurement Act as a result of which the House of Representatives joint committee on public procurement and pensions caused a probe to be instituted. But then, there were also parallel running stories about her presumed obstinacy, particularly when according to some reports, she and her board fobbed off an attempt by the finance ministry and those of the Debt Management Office to grant the federal government a princely N3.5 trillion loan to execute the 2016 budget.

What is noteworthy here is that the president at some point decided that her cup as indeed those of her board, were not only full but running over. End of the story. In the event, the president duly exercised his powers under Section 18 of the Act under which any member of the board, including the DG could be removed, if he “is satisfied that it is not in the interest of the commission or in the interest of the public for the person to continue in office and notifies the member in writing to that effect”.

That was in 2017. The woman, fortunately has long moved on – this time to Akinwunmi Adesina’s African Development Bank (AfDB) as head and senior director of the Africa Investment Forum.

Good riddance, no? To who?

Unfortunately, if the same Act expected the president to go the full hog to fulfil the law in naming a replacement, this time an individual from the Southeast, this was not to be; instead, two nominees – Dikko Aliyu Abdulrahman (Northwest) and Funsho Doherty (southwest) suddenly came up from the presidency to the Senate for confirmation for the offices of DG and chairman of the commission respectively.

Sensing mischief if not outright disdain for the law establishing the commission, the then senate would have none of it – hence it threw out the request. Its argument was simple: the nominations were in “absolute breach” of 21 (1) of the PRA 2014, which states that: “In the event of a vacancy (for the chairman, DG or other members of the board), the president shall appoint a replacement from the geo-political zone of the immediate past member that vacated office to complete the remaining tenure.”

That “replacement” did not happen in the whole of the following three years. However, suffice to say that while that aspect of the Act was kept in abeyance, Mrs. Aisha Dahir-Umar from the Northwest was named, in the interim, as DG in acting capacity. And now as if bidding for the tenure of the past board to lapse, the same individual who has been on the seat ever since, has been nominated by the president for the substantive office and for the next five years!

Now, the point has been made that the nomination, rather than being in breach of any known law, is actually what the law requires the president to do. After all, Section 19(3) of the PRA 2014 provides that the chairman, the Director General and commissioners be appointed by the President subject to confirmation by the Senate – which in this case is what the president has merely put into motion.

A friend actually told me in the course of a discussion on the matter at the weekend that the outrage surrounding Dahir-Umar’s nomination was misconceived. To summarise his position: to the extent that old things represented by the former board have since passed away – the expectation is for all things brand new! Really? Anyway, my response was that although the wound created might seem innocuous at this time, it seems only a matter of time for gangrene to set in!

Which of course takes us back to the position of Senator Abaribe on the matter.

Law or not, I do not think his position is difficult to understand. His premise is as simple as it is unassailable: whereas the tenure of the last DG was aborted mid-way, the law made provision for her replacement from another individual from that particular part of the country. The other point, although not so stated is that there was just enough time to do that considering that this happened barely midway into tenure!

Is it that the same people whose responsibility it was to ensure that this was done but failed to act appropriately cannot smell the hypocrisy of sheltering behind the law while ignoring the equally weighty matter of equity? Classic a case of law trumping equity and morality!

Still want to ask me what I think of the development? Political immorality couldn’t have a better description. It will ceretainly take more than Lawan’s senate to deodorise the stench!