Why should the governor’s stupendous retirement package for himself be an issue?
Many people must have been wondering why tongues have been wagging in Akwa Ibom State since Monday when the state house of assembly passed into law a bill presented to it by Governor Godswill Akpabio. The bill, as passed, sought a pension for life at a rate equivalent to the salary of the incumbent governor, to former governors and ex-deputy governors. It also provided for the former governor a provision for funds to employ a cook, drivers and security guards at a sum not exceeding N5million per month and N2.5million for the deputy. The (former) governor would also be entitled to free medical services for his person and spouse at a sum not exceeding N100million per annum and N50million for former deputy governor.
Moreover, the former governor is entitled to a befitting accommodation not below a five-bed room maisonette in either Abuja or Akwa Ibom and a yearly accommodation allowance of 300 per cent of annual basic salary for the deputy governor of the state. I can hear you ask: what is a maisonette? You cannot know and should not bother, after all, you are not a retired governor. Other allowances include a severance gratuity of 300 per cent of annual basic salary as of the time the governor leaves office, among other things.
I guess the state chapter of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) that had earlier threatened to embark on a protest to halt the passing of the bill eventually saw reason; hence, its failure to embark on the protest. A newspaper report said the union merely “turned numb as the House, after moving a motion for the bill to be read the third time, passed it into law”. That is what contemporary labour unionism demands – labour leaders don’t have to be unrealistically rigid; they also reserve the right to use their discretion and soft-pedal when confronted with superior argument. The proviso in this case is that the labour leaders have to be convinced that the people explaining the situation to them must at some point be making sense. So, the labour leaders can then ‘try their best’, to quote a prominent traditional ruler in the June 12 debacle. ‘Trying their best’ in this context means aborting the protest they had earlier threatened to embark upon.
I know mischief makers with dirty minds would be saying all kinds of things now that the labour leaders have seen the light. For instance, they would start thinking that the governor must have silenced them with wads of naira or even dollar or pound sterling notes, or that their banks must have sent alerts to them about some strange but welcome deposits in their accounts.
But beyond all that speculation, what the new law confirms is that our governors are not only going to have the good life here; they are also going to have it more abundantly hereafter. In other words, they will not only live well, they will also die well. Shakespeare agrees with that: “When beggars die there are no comets seen; the heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes”? And, I think our governors deserve it all for the meritorious services they are rendering. You reserve the right to argue that not all of them deserve to be pampered, but no one can say that Governor Akpabio has not worked well enough. Apparently, it is in recognition of his hard work that the legislators quickly passed the bill into law before some people will throw spanner in the works in the name of protest.
It is such people who do not see anything good in political leaders who have described as ‘indecent haste’ the hurry with which the house of assembly passed the bill. What they did not understand is that the lawmakers must have been guided by the governor’s achievements. The legislators should simply ignore people who might be thinking that they were induced to pass the law. Another thing that must have worked in the governor’s interest is the fact that Governor Akpabio is also a ‘friend of the president’. If the governor does not have complimentary cards to that effect, the presidency should ensure, as a matter of urgency, that he gets some. Such cards served as meal ticket for one influential Nigerian in the Obasanjo era. To be fair to Akpabio, he has been of tremendous assistance to President Goodluck Jonathan, whether in the formation of the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) Governors Forum which he is its chairman, to whittle down the power of the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) that the presidency polarised; or even in the NGF election that the presidency celebrated Governor Jonah Jang who had 16 votes as winner, against Governor Rotimi Amaechi’s 19 votes.
Indeed, you must be of the world to be wondering why Governor Akpabio and President Jonathan are soul mates. The rest of us understand that this is quite natural. While the former has good luck always answering unto him, especially after his initial shoeless years, the latter always believes that whatever he does has the imprimatur of God. And there is a limit to how far we can query someone who bears God as part of his name if that person says his actions are based on God’s will, when even people who have no such semblance with God use God’s name in vain for all kinds of things, including waiting on Him to tell them if they should contest third term or not!
Apart from these two incidents, and, lest I forget, a third, which was the governor’s manipulation of the result of a 2007 PDP senatorial primary election in the state by single-handedly replacing the winner with the name of his preferred candidate, we should be able to canonise Governor Akpabio, more than seven years after assuming office, with the angels rejoicing in heaven. After all, he is human and, to err is human, and to forgive, divine. At any rate, none of these acts is corrupt practice. By President Jonathan’s (thank God he is not our grundnorm) definition, they could only amount to mere em… em.
As a matter of fact, these misdemeanours pale into insignificance when we consider the governor’s numerous achievements. But one that interests me is the way he has caused a scarcity of housemaids in the country. Before his coming to power on May 29, 2007, Akwa Ibom State was, in a writer’s view, “a foraging ground for persons seeking housemaids and house-help”. Governor Akpabio reversed that with his enactment of a Child Rights and Protection Law which makes it mandatory for every Akwa Ibom girl-child to be in school instead of wasting away in the homes of some rich people in Lagos and its environs. These Lagos big people, they are now like the tortoise that cannot be missing in any ignoble conduct. Remember it was their children that the president accused in 2012 of enjoying the entire subsidy that government pays on petrol!
Akwa Ibom girls played immeasurable roles in the lives of their masters in those days before Akpabio made us understand that they did not have a monopoly of comparative advantage when it comes to tending the homes, or even preparing irresistible delicacies. No wonder many Akwa Ibom women (and men) have won elite cooking competitions in the country over and over again. But I know the Lagos masters preferred the ‘she-mails’ (as opposed to the ‘e-mails’) because Akwa Ibom girls and ladies are also said to be masters of a third ‘chore’ which I dare not mention because today is Sabbath Day which the Holy Bible tells us to keep holy. As a matter of fact, something tells me it is the big people who have now been denied the services of such ‘she-mails’ by Akpabio and are compelled to look for maids from neighbouring countries at very high costs (but who cannot deliver value in any material particular like the Akwa Ibom girls), that see as extraordinary the retirement package that Akpabio has arranged for himself and other governors and their deputies in the state. I can’t see anyone of substance objecting to the generous package in an oil-rich state like Akwa Ibom where money is not the problem but how to spend it. Are governors of less-endowed states not enjoying similar benefits, at least relatively?
Honestly, it is difficult to blame the governor for doing it himself. In these days when erstwhile political aides become masters to their former masters once they have power in their hands, that is the commonsensical thing to do. You never can trust anyone to do such a thing for you; so, it is better to do it yourself. The governor seems aware of some sayings that even if we give a hoe to a mad man, he would cultivate towards himself. If a mad man can do this, do we expect less from someone like Governor Akpabio who is alright, not only up but down as well? Moreover, a governor that works well also deserves to retire well. Above all, if Governor Akpabio is said to be generous to a fault; why then should he be stingy to himself? Akpabio, Akpabio! I don’t know why the new law should be an issue considering that the governor has even helped the state by putting a ceiling to how much former governors could spend, say, on medical treatment. HItherto, it was open-ended.
