Politics of benefits

It was Jonathan Zwingina, an old war horse in politics, who told this writer many years ago in an interview that politics is like opium. The man, who was the equivalent of today’s director-general as campaign manager for the late MKO Abiola’s Hope ’93, was a senator at the inception of Obasanjo’s civilian presidency, when he told me that politicians hardly ever quit, except perhaps for physical disabilities, serious ill health or other such impediments. Little wonder businessmen who veered into politics would lament about a dwindling of their fortunes but would never quit. In the Second Republic the tribunal set up to try politicians reported that former Vice-President, Dr. Alex Ekwueme, had better bank balance and assets outside politics given that he became poorer when he tasted the opium of politics. Yet when the whistle was blown for commencement of politics in 1999, he went headlong to continue from where he stopped in 1983.  The likes of Senator Orji Uzor Kalu would confess that he was in the league of the Mike Adenugas and the Dangotes of Nigeria before the lure of politics became irresistible. Now he may no longer be in that league because his attention is captured by the opium of politics. The examples above are indicators that pecuniary benefits may not rank high in the seeming addiction to politics on tasting that opium.

The thing is contagious too. Sons follow in the political footsteps of their fathers or their fathers give them a taste of the addictive drug. Examples are replete. Senator Jackson Adeleke, now Governor of Osun State, inherited it from his father, who was a Second Republic senator in the days of Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s Unity Party of Nigeria. Papa Ayoola Adeleke was a unionist and labour leader whose career dovetailed into politics such that he was in the Senate from 1979 to 1983. Today, two governors have sprung up from the family and who knows, still counting. President Bola Tinubu began as a Senator in the ill-fated Abacha-truncated republic. His eventual return from self-exile on the passage of dark-goggled head of that junta fetched him the exalted position of governor of Lagos Sate. At the end of his eight-year tenure, he drafted his wife into the Senate. She stayed there until her husband moved from powerbroker to power-bearer. Those who opine that his son may ultimately mount the saddle in Lagos may not be far from the mark. Former Governor Segun Osoba’s son is in the House of Representatives just as Lai Mohamed’s is in the House of Assembly. In Kwara State, the late Senator Olusola Saraki literally walked his son, Bukola, into the governor’s office. He beheld the opium and abandoned his medical practice and became full-blown, transiting from government house to Senate and aiming for the presidency.

This intervention holds no grudge against people on the march to fulfill their political ambition. The offhand reason is that they do so as a means to serve the people. This reason may have propelled a man like Nyesom Wike, the immediate past governor of Rivers State, now Minister of Federal Capital Territory, to remain in the service of the people since the commencement of the current democratic dispensation. He climbed the ladder meticulously, moving from local government chairman to chief of staff to the governor, to minister, two-term governor and now back to minister. Yes, it has been about service, about being in power. Evidently President Bola Tinubu understands the intoxicating effect of that opium, which is why he nominated four immediate past governors into his cabinet. It is all about service to the people.

What are the cost implications of this to the public because they pay the bill? It may be politically expedient but expediency demands that we count the cost. There are states where former governors also live off the state as though they were still in office. Such perks would better be termed retirement benefits, for lack of more adept description. It stands logic on the head to say that someone occupied a political office for four or eight years and a law passes before what ought to be the eagle eyes of the state assembly to the effect that such persons are entitled to house, change of cars every four years, house-helps and numerous perks that sometimes border on absurdity in its details in a nation where career civil servants who gave no less than 35 years of service still collapse in lines where they queue to verify and collect stipends paid occasionally. The current governor of Imo State, Hope Uzodimna, had to reverse the law in Imo State when he found that the humongous benefits would dig big holes in the state’s coffers. Although his opponents say he may have done that because those he succeeded were not in his good books. The wind of reversal has not blown to other states like Akwa Ibom, Lagos, Rivers  bound by laws that treat some categories of politicians who have left office as though there were still there.

Here is the question that has elicited this piece: Should such former governors as President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Nyesom Wike, Godswill Akpabio and others now serving in various political positions still collect their legal benefits due to them in their former positions? Obedience to the law would translate to their benefits running unhindered. The moral of such benefits in an economy bleeding on all sides is acute insensitivity. It would mean that such politicians want to live off the public for the rest of their life. I do not know if such laws apply at the local government level given that such existence would imply that such politicians as Minister Nyesom Wike would get bank alerts and benefits from two tiers of government in addition to his emoluments as minister. Nothing short of a categorical statement on this matter should suffice to answer the prevalent question. The other thing would be for states where such laws are domiciled amend them to reflect the prevalent situation and stop such benefits in the pendency of any political office. The Nigerian economy cannot and should not support such double benefits. Politics, in this instance, would be about benefits, not service.