House Restores Pensions to former Military Rulers

Written by This Day Friday, 02 July 2010

Former military rulers in Nigeria had cause to smile yesterday as the House of Representatives reversed itself on a legislation, which had earlier  excluded them from enjoying  the privilege of pension.

The bill  provides pension benefits  for former presidents, former vice-presidents, former senate presidents, former speakers of the House, former chief justices of the Federation, and former speakers of state Houses of Assembly.

The legislation known as the  “Bill for an Act to provide Remuneration of Former Presidents, Heads of Federal Legislative Houses and Chief Justices of the Federation and Other Ancillary Matters” had excluded all those who ruled the country during the military era from enjoying  pension.

Their exclusion was premised on the argument that military rule was an aberration and as such all those who seized power  by force and imposed their authority on the people did not deserve pension. The Senate had equally held the same view  and had passed the same legislation excluding the military rulers.

However, the piece of legislation  was returned  to the green chamber yesterday where a new position was canvassed  to include them.

Chairman, House Committee on Rules and Business, Hon. Ita Enang, brought a motion seeking a “re-committal  and another third reading for the bill. Enang who invoked Order xii, Rule 10(2) of the House rules moved that the bill be re-committed  to the committee of the whole to enable the House debate other “constitutional  and incidental  matters pertaining to the bill.”

He argued that between the time the bill was passed and now, some facts have emerged that tend to make the earlier decision untenable under the Constitution.

Enang recalled that whereas the former military rulers were in the original bill, it was deleted because of available information and the mood of the lawmakers at that time. According to him, the lawmakers had erroneously believed that the 1999 Constitution did not recognise former rulers who were not democratically elected but that emerging information has proved otherwise.

He said the Constitution does not only recognise these former military rulers  as heads of government of the federation at various but  has created a constitutional role for them by virtue of their membership of the Council of States, the highest advisory body to the President. He urged to House to consider the inclusion of these former rulers in the bill before passing it into law.

Enang cited section 316(2) of the constitution to buttress his argument.

However, a number of lawmakers raised objections to the move. Minority Leader, Hon. Mohammed Ndume, called the attention of the House to a contradiction in the bill where in one of its clauses, it was stipulated that no person who was either impeached  or forcefully removed from office can be a  beneficiary of the proposed pension.

Ndume argued that in that case, nearly all the former rulers (military or civilian) including General Yakubu Gowon,  Alhaji Shehu Shagari, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari who were victims of military coup cannot be beneficiaries of the scheme.

Hon Terngu Tsegba, also raised another objection that it was wrong for the parliament to establish another pension scheme for former heads of state, former speakers  and their deputies as well as former chief justices after the enactment of the Pension Reform Act, 2004.  Tsegba said that under the Act, all Nigerians were expected to embrace a contributory pension scheme except where such persons were already retired and enjoying the old pension scheme.

In  the face of these arguments, the House made necessary adjustment by deleting the issue of impeachment  and passed the bill.

The Senate had in March this year deleted  the names of all former military heads of state from the list of  beneficiaries of the special pension package, saying their inclusion was unconstitutional and undemocratic.

In removing the names of former military heads of State from the list of beneficiaries of the remuneration, the Senate had  argued that their inclusion would be tantamount to rewarding coupists   encouraging  coup detats in the future.

In a remark at the end of Senate’s deliberation on the Bill,  Senate President, David Mark, himself a retired military officer said: “This is to discourage other ways of getting into power through unconstitutional  means; the only way recognised by the constitution is through the ballot box and not through the barrel of the gun.”