The Executive Director of WorkBond International Network, Omotaje Olawale-Saint has commended the decision of former Governor of Ogun State, Otunba Gbenga Daniel to halt the payment of his pension while drawing salaries and allowances from another public account as a serving Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
The organisation noted that this pacesetter stride of Senator Gbenga Daniel has been followed by another serving Senator, ex-Governor Ibrahim, Hassan Dankwambo of Gombe State, stating that it is a “commendable velvet discharge of “burden of conscience for selfless service”, one of the rare qualities and conditionalities of service to humanity”.
The body believes that the rejection of the highly, controversial, scandalous pension payment is in sync with the antecedents of Otunba Gbenga Daniel as a former progressive youth and students’ activists as well as a progressive statesman with social conscience.
Comrade Olawale -Saint called for the ex-Governor pension funds not just to be donated to Ogun State Government but to be deployed to address salient, social needs of the less privileged and vulnerable in the State, “the pension allowances should be used in the provision of determined social infrastructural needs of the people in each of the three Senatorial Zones of the State particularly for the rural communities – portable water, primary healthcare needs like basic drugs, sanitary tools, support for primary education”.
In similar vein, human rights crusader and senior legal luminary, Femi Falana, SAN has insisted that the positions of Senators Daniel and Dankwambo are in compliance with extant judicial pronouncement on the illegality of the scandalous ex-Governors pension payments from scarce public treasury.
Falana clarified that “ in a landmark judgment delivered on November 26 2019, Justice Oluremi Oguntoyinbo (now retired) declared the payment of the pension illegal and unconstitutional. Consequently, the Court ordered the Accountant-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice to recover the life pensions collected by former governors serving as Senators and Ministers”.
The Civil Society body call on former Governors in the Executive and Legislature to emulate the example of Senators Daniel and Dankwambo by rejecting the payment of the illegal pension forthwith.
Olawale Saint said there would be CSOs campaigns to stop other public officers from Presidency, Senate President, Senators, Ministers and others that are drawing multiple emoluments from public treasury, Pensions as former Governors as well as Salaries and Allowances as serving members of the National Assembly or Federal Cabinet Members.
