By Ivor Takor,
The adage that says “rest is sweet after labour” may after all not hold for employees of most States and Local Governments in the country. The adage holds sway only for employees who have got their rest planned for them by their employers during the period of their labour. Unfortunately for employees of most States and Local Governments, planning is alien in the management of States administration.
The advent of paid employment introduced planning for rest after labour through the introduction of pension schemes. This is institutionalised by International Conventions and Standards, particularly International Labour Organisation (ILO) Social Security (Minimum Standards) Convention 1952 (No.102), which established the right of all to Social Security and expressed the responsibility of National Government and international communities to guarantee that right in practice. Pension is the most visible pillar of any social security scheme of any country.
In Nigeria, the first public sector pension scheme was introduced through the Pension Ordinance of 1951 with retroactive effect from January 1, 1946, which protected the pension rights of colonial public officers. This was followed by Decrees 102 and 103 of 1979 enacted for the civil service and the military respectively, with retroactive effect from April 1974. The two decrees became Pension Act 1990 and remain in force with universal application in the Public Service of the Federation, Public Services of States and Local Governments until it was repealed by the Pension Reform Act 2004, in June 2004.
Nigeria in 2004 carried out a comprehensive reform of its pension schemes, with the promulgation of Pension Reform Act 2004, which became effective on June 25, 2014. The Act established a Contributory Pension Scheme for employees in the Public Service of the Federation, Federal Capital Territory and the Private Sector. Employees of the Public Sector of States and Local Governments were excluded from the coverage of the Act.
The exclusion was not an oversight by the Fola Adeola Committee that carried out the pension reform and drafted the Bill that was enacted into Pension Reform Act 2004. Employees of States and Local Governments where covered in the draft bill. However, the Governors mobilised representatives of their states from both chambers of the National Assembly to remove employees of states and local governments from the bill before it was passed into law. Their excuse was that the country was under civil rule therefore; there must be the practice of true federalism, which does not allow the National Assembly to make laws for the States on an issue such as pension, which does not fall in the exclusive legislative list of the Constitution. Never mind that when they stand to benefit, such as the recent bailout from the federal government for financially bankrupt states to pay backlog of salary arrears to their employees, Governors’ will jettison the principle of true federalism.
Years into the implementation of the Pension Reform Act 2004, which repealed the Pension Act 1990 that was of universal application in the whole of the Public Sectors in the country and the introduction of the Contributory Pension Scheme, no State Government enacted a law to protect the pension rights of its workers. Disturbed by this lacuna, the Board of the National Pension Commission (PenCom) approached the National Council of States and got the Council to agree to adopt the Contributory Pension Scheme for their employees. The Council decided that State Governments will enact their own pension laws in line with a draft bill that was prepared for them by PenCom.
As at the last count, only about ten state governments have either enacted pension laws or are at various stages of enacting pension laws for their employees. More disturbing is the fact that even those that have enacted their own pension laws, thereby keying into the Contributory Pension Scheme, operate the Scheme in default of their own laws.
Nothing so far exposes the greed, avarice and self-centredness of our ruling political class like the pension rights of States and Local Government employees.  Some of the immediate past Governors who failed in eight years to enact laws to take care of pension of employees of States and Local Governments they superintended over, were within two days, through subversive generosities extended to the members of their ever “cooperative” Houses of Assemblies, able to protect for themselves, bloated “pension”, allowances, which include houses, bullet proof vehicles, domestic and security helpers and provisions for medical tourism, which they smuggled into the statute books of the states in the name of pension rights for political office holders or whatever names so called. It is honestly difficult to understand why a Governor who served a state for eight  years should believe that his services were more meritorious, deserving a better rest after labour than other employees of the same State and Local Governments, who have put in between twenty to thirty five  years of services. Some of these Governors’ have turned Abuja the seat of the Federal Government, to their safe haven. They can be seen in the hallowed chamber of the Senate of the National Assembly, superintending as Ministers in Federal Ministries, while some of them are already positioning themselves for Ambassadorial positions and chairmanship of “lucrative” Federal parastatals and agencies.
Nothing highlights the urgency of the adoption of the Contributory Pension Scheme for employees of States and Local Governments now than the remarks of Mr President. Sahara Reporters, on its online portal reported on March 25, 2016 that President Muhamadu Buhari remarked while speaking at the second National Executive Committee meeting of the APC held in Abuja on Thursday  March 24, 2016 that 27 States of the federation are having difficulties paying their workers’ salaries due to the country’s economic woes. Mr President was only reminding his party’s members who included Governors’ elected on the party’s platform, what was already known to every Nigeria. If nothing else points to the obvious bankruptcy of most State Governments, the recent cry by State Governors for bailout from the Federal Government to assist them to pay outstanding workers’ salaries was a direct acceptance of the bankruptcy of most State Governments.
•Takor is Director, Centre for Pension Rights Advocacy

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