On the issue of life pensions for principal officer of the National Assembly

The approval of life pensions for the principal officers of the National Assembly like other issues under review in the ongoing constitutional amendment raises issues bordering on the real essence of leadership and service in Nigeria. Already the issue is generating a lot of criticisms from Nigerians and is being interpreted as an advancement of the vested interest of the legislators in the face of more crippling social problems. The ensuing controversy gives rise to issues bordering on the essence of pensions generally. Pensions the world over are a stated allowance to a person in consideration of past services. It is a payment made to one retired from service, on account of age, disability, or other cause. Pensions take the form of a regular stipend paid by a government to retired public officers, disabled soldiers, the families of soldiers killed in service, or to meritorious authors, or the like. What is of paramount importance in the award of pensions is the goal to which such an award is geared. In the United Kingdom for instance,the Old-Age Pensions Act of 1908 which is often regarded as one of the foundations of modern social welfare was introduced to arrest poverty in old age; particularly, for persons over seventy years of age. In the United States Pension plans became popular during World War II, when wage freezes prohibited outright increases in workers’ pay and the major goal among others was to provide essentially for the war veterans; particularly those incapacitated by war. While there are various types of pension packages, in recent years Many countries have opted for various forms of contributory pension scheme where employers and their employees are supposed to pay a certain percentage of the employee’s monthly earnings to a retirement savings accounts from which they would be drawing their pension benefits after retirement. Now, in the case of the principal officers of Nigeria’s National Assembly the issues that arises include: what really is the goal to which a such a life pension is geared? Do the principal officers really need a life pension? Has the service of the principal officers in anyway in capacitied them such that a life pension becomes desirable? what happens when some of the said principal officers are already retired public servants who may have already been on a pension plan? More importantly, in the face of other crippling social ills like poverty and unemployment, does a life pension for persons whom public service may have made better off a wise decision? These issues need to be properly address or else there simply will be no basis for the life pension plans.