SERAP Warns Ganduje Over Life Pensions For Lawmakers

The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has sent an open letter to the Kano State Governor, Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, urging him to reject life pensions and brand-new vehicles for lawmakers’ bill passed by the Kano State House of Assembly.
In the letter signed by SERAP Deputy Director, Kolawole Oluwadare, the organization said the bill represents law-making in the interest and personal satisfaction of the lawmakers, which flagrantly offends the principles of legal justice and the rule of law.
“The lawmakers ought to subordinate their own interests to the welfare of the people of Kano. By passing the life pensions and medical trips abroad bill, the lawmakers have invariably ‘bought at their own sales’, and violated their sacred trust.
“This bare desire by the lawmakers of the Kano State House of Assembly to pass a bill to award to themselves life pensions, foreign medical trips and brand-new vehicles every four years is oppressive and violates the obligation of impartiality to the people of Kano they are elected to serve and the ideals of fiduciary government. The bill, proposed by Baffa Baba Dangundi is a textbook case of diversion of public resources to private purposes.
“Rather than passing bills to divert public resources for personal benefits, the lawmakers should pass legislation that will urgently address the chronic problem of over 3 million out-of-school children in Kano (the highest in Nigeria) and ensure immediate payment of outstanding pensions and workers’ salaries, given that your government has already received N21.7 billion from the Paris Club debt refund, and also reportedly received in 2018 N84.2billion from the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC).”