APC Leaders Grant Themselves Lifetime Benefits, Opulent Allowances
APC Leaders Grant Themselves Lifetime
Benefits, Opulent Allowances
SaharaReporters has learned about a bill
recently introduced in the Lagos State
House of Assembly to approve luxurious
lifelong benefits to the legislative body’s
speaker and deputy speaker.
The bill proposes to grant the two officials,
who are members of the All Progressives
Congress (APC), pensions that amount to
100 percent of their annual basic salary for
life, after their tenure as leaders in the state
assembly expires.
The bill also proposes such additional
benefits as a free house anywhere in Lagos
State and a free vehicle paid for from state
funds.
In a move that two APC insiders criticized
for being corrupt and selfish, the two
legislative officials are also meant to receive
unlimited allowance for furnishing their
free homes, security personnel for life, and
free medical treatment for the officials and
their families for life. Other obscene
benefits include additional allowances for
housing maintenance, vehicle
maintenance, and entertainment—each
category calculated at 10 percent of the
officials’ base salary. The officials’ utility
allowance is at 20 percent of their base
salary.
In addition, the bill stipulates that the state
governor and deputy governor as well as
their families would receive free medical
treatment for life. All designated members
of the state leadership would have
pensionable drivers for life as well.
The scandalous bill is cited as “the Public
Office Holder (Payment of Pension) Law
2007 (Amendment) Law 2015.”
“This bill is a slap on the faces of the hapless
residents of Lagos State who pay through
their noses for amenities that are mostly
inadequate or absent,” said a critic of the
bill, an APC member. He added, “This is a
senseless war by some decadent APC
leaders against the public interest.”
A member of the state assembly, who said
he found the bill shocking, saying the
proposed bill was introduced at a time
Nigeria’s public attention was focused
squarely on national elections, the
counterinsurgency against Boko Haram in
the north, and the APC presidential
candidate, Muhammadu Buhari’s visit to
London.
