Living Lavishly Ever After

Public office in Nigeria is, largely, a route to living lavishly ever after. You are overcompensated while in office and further spoilt in retirement after your four- or eight-year tenure. Meanwhile, civil servants who helped to run the government for 35 years retire into poverty as their meagre entitlements are not paid.

Just the other day, Nigerians were shocked at the scandalous sight of elderly retirees protesting over pension and gratuity payment being tear-gassed by the police in Lagos State.

“Monkey dey work, baboon dey chop” is how the situation is described in local parlance. George Orwell put it famously: “All animals are equal but some are more equal than others”—a paradox that mocks leaders who claim everyone is equal while giving special privileges to themselves. It shows how degenerate governments use tricky language to excuse unfairness and maintain power.

Ortom’s 23 Vehicles

It was Samuel Ortom, the immediate past governor of Benue State, who catapulted this issue to the front burner of national discourse with his ongoing public spat with the state government over his severance package, having served as governor for eight years.

“After I left office, vehicles that were legitimately allocated to me by the government were seized by the administration in a manner that was unbecoming,” he said.

“I went to court, defeated them, and the court ordered them to pay N5 million in damages in addition to returning the 23 vehicles that were initially seized… It is a tradition that when you are appointed in office or elected, and when you are leaving, you leave with those vehicles,” he said. He added that “By government rules, when vehicles are used for four years, they become more of a scrap, and they are given out.”

According to him, the arrangement also covered other officials who served in his administration, including his deputy, commissioners, advisers, and aides.

Ortom disclosed that the court subsequently ordered the government to return all 23 vehicles and awarded him N5 million in damages, but the administration of incumbent Governor Alia has neither appealed against the judgement nor returned the 23 vehicles, hence his accusation that the government is lawless.

If the former governor expected sympathy from the court of public opinion, he was terribly disappointed. His disclosures only ruffled the hornet’s nest. Netizens descended on him with venom, accusing him of being symptomatic of the systemic rot that makes people like him feel entitled to continue living off the state after eight years of what the public describes as freeloading sleaze.

Nigerians are now questioning whether leaving public office with 23 government vehicles should be allowed, even where officially allocated, in a state where the overwhelming majority of the people are living from hand to mouth, and in which pensioners who retired from the state civil service are routinely owed their paltry gratuities for years on end.

Public Scrutiny

This issue has also drawn attention to the fact that more public scrutiny needs to be applied to happenings in the states and local governments. The federal government controls 52.68% of national earnings, but state governments receive 26.72% (plus an additional 13% derivation fund returned to mineral-producing states from specific natural resource revenues), while local government councils get 20.60%.

State and local governments, which are the closest tier of government to the people, have been reduced to fiefdoms where the mere fact of leaving office on the expiration of a four- or eight-year tenure entitles the retiree to a lifetime of paid leisure by the government.

A look at what obtains in other states shows that Ortom’s case is probably just a tip of the iceberg.

The Lagos Trail

A massive outcry greeted the enactment of the Lagos State Governor and Deputy Governor Pensions Law in 2007 because the compensations itemised were considered insanely outrageous.

Under the original 2007 framework, the provisions included:

A residential house in Lagos and another in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja.

Six brand-new cars (three for the ex-governor, two backup cars, and one pilot car) to be replaced every three years.

100% of annual basic salary.

Furniture allowance of 300% of the annual basic salary (paid every two years).

House maintenance, utility, entertainment, and car maintenance allowances.

Fully pensionable domestic staff, including cooks, stewards, gardeners, drivers, and personal assistants, with no strict limits on numbers.

Free, uncapped medical treatment for the former governor, their spouse, and dependent family members.

Extensive security details, including Department of State Services (DSS) operatives and multiple police officers.

Generally, there is a stark contrast between constitutional provisions, state-level legislation, and reform efforts driven by fiscal constraints. At the federal baseline, the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Allocation Commission (RMFAC) outlines a one-time severance gratuity equal to 300% of the governor’s basic annual salary upon completing their term. However, over 20 state houses of assembly enacted localised executive pension laws that grant lifetime benefits well beyond this standard.

The high-perk states such as Akwa Ibom, Rivers, Lagos, and Kano historically passed comprehensive laws. Ex-governors in these states receive multi-million naira annual payouts, high-end residential properties in Abuja and their home states, free medical care abroad, and fully funded domestic staff.

States with leaner treasuries provide 100% pension matching for the incumbent’s salary alongside basic security details and vehicle upkeep but omit out-of-state luxury properties.

Public outcry, economic pressures, and legal interventions by civil society groups (such as SERAP) led states like Zamfara, Kwara, Imo, Abia, and Lagos to repeal or significantly scale down these pension laws, limiting former leaders primarily to the basic statutory RMFAC severance. While some states maintain life pensions with extensive perks, a growing number of states are abolishing these executive packages in favour of standard single-payment gratuities.

Watch Lower Rungs

Public-spirited citizens and civil society activists had better devoted more attention to what’s going on at the state and local government levels than they are doing at the moment. The federal government is not the only player in this economy. We should stop issuing get-out-of-jail passes to states and local governments who ate our yesterday and may yet foul up our tomorrow if given the opportunity.

Ex-Governor Samuel Ortom’s outcry only served to draw attention to the inequity and iniquities of the system we operate as a nation. While some retired senior civil servants are unable to maintain one car after retirement, a politician is routinely allocated 23 vehicles for ‘enduring’ the tenancy of the government house for eight years, during which he played god and superintended over humongous unauditable security votes.

And to think that he feels so righteously entitled! Apparently, politicians live in a different world in which they elect the people in whose name they will engage in primitive accumulation so as to live lavishly ever after. You’d think they were doing us a favour!

Mortal man, is there anything greedier than the grave? It swallows everyone and everything, asks for more, and gives nothing back. Someday soon, to enjoy any semblance of social equanimity, we will have to overhaul the system that makes the monkey a vassal of the baboon.

The alternative is guaranteed to lead to social combustion.