By Fatai Ahmed
A call has gone out to public office holders in the present political dispensation to emulate former Senate President, Dr Abubakar Bukola Saraki and Former Ekiti state governor, Dr Kayode Fayemi by suspending collection of pension from their previous public office as well as collecting salary from their current office, which constitutes double Emoluments.
Making this call is, Dr Reuben Abati, a frontline Journalist and former Special Adviser to ex President Goodluck Jonathan.
Abati made the call while anchoring Morning Show, an Arise TV flagship news programme on Wednesday.
According to him, a law should be promulgated to check this unwholesome practice. ” Those who are collecting double emoluments from the National Assembly and even the presidency should stop doing this. They should emulate former Senate President, Saraki and Former Ekiti governor, Fayemi”, he said.
It will be recalled that while serving as senate president in 2015, Saraki voluntarily requested that the payment of pension to his account be stopped and the amount already credited to the account be refunded to the government. The Kwara state government promptly complied.
The statement issued by the then secretary to the state government, Isiaka Gold, reads:
” The attention of Kwara state government has been drawn to issues surrounding the payment of pensions to former governors of the state, especially the senate president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Dr Abubakar Bukola Saraki, CON.
“As a result, the state government wish to make the following clarifications: That Dr Saraki, as a two-term governor, is entitled to pension as stipulated by the third schedule, Paragraph D (i) of the governor and deputy-governor ((payment of pension) Law, No. 12 of 2010 of Kwara state.
“That the said pension has been duly remitted to his account, like other former governors’, since he left office but when via a letter dated 20th August 2015 addressed to the state government, Dr Saraki requested that the payment of pension to his account be stopped and the amount already credited to the account be refunded to the government, the state government promptly complied.
“That the government not only stopped the payment of the said pension, the amount already paid into Dr Saraki’s account since he left office was deducted from the money owed to him as well as his other outstanding lawful entitlements.
“In view of the foregoing, it should be noted that neither the Kwara state government nor Dr Bukola Saraki violated the state pension law or any other law for that matter. The state pension law empowers the state government to pay pension to former governors of the state.”
The state government added that Saraki, on his own volition, “considered the morality of the situation in which the pension would put him since he is still a serving senator and chose to abandon his legal rights.
