Umana to repeal A’Ibom pension law if voted governor

Mr. Umana Okon Umana, PDP governorship aspirant, Akwa Ibom State

Mr. Umana Okon Umana, the leading PDP governorship aspirant in Akwa Ibom State, has promised to remove the offensive portions of the state’s controversial pension law if elected governor. The law, signed recently by state governor, Chief Godswill Akpabio, provides for many controversial financial benefits to past governors and their deputies.
Some of the controversial provisions of the pension law include N100 million annual medical allowance for every past governor; N30 million for a former deputy governor; N5 million allowance (N60 million annually) to a former governor for his domestic staff and a 5-bedroom mansion in Uyo or Abuja for every former governor.

Reacting to questions on the law in a telephone interview with our reporter, Umana, who is the immediate past secretary to the state government, described the pension legislation as “obscene, provocative and insensitive,” adding, “it is surprising that in spite of a nationwide public outcry against the bill for the pension law, the Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly rushed to pass it within 11 days and the governor signed it into law with indecent haste within 24 hours without any inputs from members of the public who will foot the bill.”

Umana said sections of the law that are highly offensive and insensitive to the plight of Akwa Ibom people and therefore unacceptable include the provision of a ceiling of N100 million in annual medical allowance, which is about $700,000; N5 million monthly allowance for the domestic staff of a former governor and the provision on housing for the former governor.

He said in spite of the argument that the N100 million allowance is the ceiling, the contemplation of the provision is absurd, outrageous and unfortunate, given the level of economic hardship that faces the average Akwa Ibom person, which makes the World Bank in a recent report to categorise Akwa Ibom State as the third poorest in the South-South.  Umana faulted the pension law also on the ground that a former governor cannot realistically incur medical expenses of up to N100 million or $700,000 in one year.

The former SSG added that an annual wage bill of N60 million at the rate of N5 million a month for the domestic staff of a former governor means providing for compensation for over 250 domestic servants  for a former governor based on the current minimum wage of N18,000. “This is clearly unrealistic and outrageous,” he said. On the provision of a 5-bedroom mansion for a former governor in Abuja or Uyo, Umana who said the provision is not only unjustifiable and unnecessary, described it is an open-ended provision that is liable to abuse since the cost of the mansion is not specified, making it possible for an outgoing governor to provide a mansion at any cost for himself.

Umana said he believes that government should be accountable to the people, arguing that the bill for the pension law should have been revisited to take away its controversial and offensive portions when citizens of the state and other Nigerians began to protest against its provisions.