Robbery At The Lagos Assembly.

According to new reports, lawmakers at the Lagos State House of Assembly last week quietly initiated moves to amend a bill seeking to pay the Speaker and Deputy Speaker life pensions and other lavish post-retirement benefits when they leave office in May.
Naij.com investigative journalist and contributor, Chidi Okoye, writes from Lagos.
The House is dominated by members of the All Progressives Congress (APC), a party that is vigorously pursuing the pruning of the cost of government if it wins presidential election in a few weeks’ time. The irony would have been funny if not that this writer is a tax payer in Lagos State.
To be fair to the lawmakers, they are only trying to grab their share of a controversial law that was pushed through by former Governor Bola Tinubu, who used it to secure an enviable retirement welfare package. National lawmakers also recently amended the constitution to allow the four leaders of both the Senate and House of Representatives enjoy life pensions and other lavish retirement packages.

 The Lagos State House of Assembly has always boasted of carrying the public along in its legislative functions, via the numerous public hearings it holds when certain laws are being considered. We would therefore hope that they invite taxpayers to debate this bill. The fact that this development was not even reported in all major national newspapers is disheartening; but not unexpected as it is an open secret that journalists covering the House are usually bribed to kill certain stories.

The story has of course been denied by the House leadership; with a vague explanation given that the amendment to the constitution by the National Assembly, which has been forwarded to all 3 state Houses of Assembly, supported the idea. Whether the Lagos Assembly is amending its own law, or that forwarded by the National Assembly, the fact remains that this issue is being deliberated upon.
This is one law that should not be passed quietly. It is time for civil society groups to lead the charge for scrutiny into these attempts to continue paying public office holders lavish salaries for life even after leaving office. At a time of dwindling crude oil sales and a weakened currency, we should be debating cuts in salaries of public office holders and not lavish post-retirement benefits.
The media should focus its searchlight on the Lagos State House of Assembly in the coming months as it walks this bill through the various steps necessary for it to become law. Activists, especially those on Nigeria’s vibrant social media platforms, should not ignore this. Labour unions need to respond by either asking for similar packages for civil servants or protest against this. The APC, through its presidential and governorship candidates, should react to this and let us know if this is part of the party’s manifesto.