Alex Otti Assents to a Bill Ending Pensions for Former Abia Governors and Their Deputies

Governor Alex Otti has signed into law a bill ending the payment of pensions to former governors and deputy governors of Abia state.

He signed the law which is an executive bill; hours after the state House of Assembly passed it and forwarded it to him for his assent.

Otti said with the law, he was happy to have committed a class suicide, because he would have been a beneficiary of the scrapped pension after leaving office.

The Governor said it has been his belief that the fund being used to pay the pensions to former governors should be diverted to the settling the pensions and gratuities owed the retired civil servants since 2014.

According to the governor, it was morally wrong for a governor and his predecessors to take up most of the resources which belong to the people.

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He thanked the state house of assembly for fast racking the passage of the bill which was generated by his administration.

As far as I am concerned, leadership is stewardship, and if you now want to take up all the resources that belong to the people you are leading, I’m not sure that it is morally correct.

Government is not about self-interest, and it’s actually self-interest that destroys government. If you accuse me of belonging to a class, I would readily admit, but add that I have happily committed class suicide because I would have benefited if this law had continued.

But we all know that it’s not the best for the country, for this state, for the workers who were hitherto owed for months, and for pensioners who we are still struggling to defray several months and years of arrears from 2014.

It’s more appropriate for us to use the funds that would have been used to pay former elected political office holders to pay our workers.

Presenting the bill for his assent earlier, the Speaker of the state House of Assembly, Emmanuel Emereuwa, represented by the Deputy Speaker, Austin Meregini, said the Bill repeals Law No 4 of 2001, which empowers the state government to pay pensions to governors and deputy governors in the state, and thanked the governor for working harmoniously with the state House of Assembly.