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From Okey Sampson, Umuahia
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo and a Board of Trustees (BOT) and national caucus member of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Prince Benjamin Apugo, have commended Governor Alex Otti of Abia State for his courage in signing into law, the bill scraping pension for former governors and deputies in the state.
Obasanjo, who spoke when he visited the governor in Umuahia, noted that pensions paid to the former governors and deputies were outrageous, while those of the ordinary retired workers were owed in Abia from 2014, describing the act as daylight robbery.
“I watched the television and I saw the repealing of the Abia pensions, and I asked you what exactly is this, and you said to me that the pensions scheme for former governors here was too outrageous.
“It’s like trouble because it allowed them to have a house in Abuja and elsewhere, and it allowed them to cart away with whatever they can, yet, the pensions of ordinary people from 2014 remain unpaid. What sort of leadership is that? You came and said there will be an end to that rascality. I congratulate you, and I hope that your colleagues will follow your footstep.”
He expressed the hope that other Governors will follow his footstep.
On his part, Prince Apugo commended Governor Otti and members of the State House of Assembly for the repealing the law.
Apugo queried what the beneficiaries of the former law did for the state that would warrant them to be paid pension for life.
He said it was annoying that a governor who had total control of the finances of the state for eight years and did whatever he liked with it, without anybody questioning him, would turn around to be paid pension for life.
The APC chieftain said it was more annoying that civil servants and other public servants who were statutorily entitled to pension, were denied it, only for the ex-governors and their deputies to be paid bogus amount as pension.
“Ex-governors and their deputies do not deserve to be paid any pension. The people who enacted the law in the first place did not love the state.
“It is quite unfortunate that monies meant for the pensions of those who genuinely deserve them were used to pay those who never merited or deserved it.”
He said it was only a governor with the pedigree of Otti, who would push for the repeal of such a law.
Apugo said Abians were solidly behind Otti and members of the State House of Assembly in that regard.
While commending the Governor for promptly signing the bill into law, Apugo called on Otti to ensure that monies paid to any former governor in that regard, is refunded to the state.
