States paying ex-govs jumbo pensions top domestic, foreign debtors’ list

States paying former governors and their deputies jumbo pensions, including houses, vehicles, fully-paid vacation, medical insurance and other juicy perks, top the list of states with the highest domestic and external debts in the country, findings by Sunday PUNCH have revealed.

According to the information on the website of the Debt Management Office as of Wednesday, the about 26 states that have the pension laws for their ex-governors owe a total of N3,920,194,580,284.72 (about N4tn), comprising N2,906,789,725,341.46 domestic debt and $3,311,780,571.71 (N1,013,404,854,943.26) foreign debts as of June 30, 2019.

The debt being owed by such states, according to some analysts, is a clear indication that the jumbo pensions for former governors was not sustainable, especially with the low level of development in the states and the struggle by most of them to implement the new N30,000 minimum wage.

Due to the economic crises, many of the states and some others had had to rely on bailouts from the Federal Government to pay salaries and pensions.

Meanwhile, many of the states have continued to pay the jumbo pensions and other benefits to their former state executives despite the dwindling revenues accruing to them from the federation account. However, the benefits captured in the laws varied.

The states, with such pension laws, leading the chart of domestic debtors include Lagos, Rivers, Delta, Akwa Ibom, Imo, Osun, Bayelsa, Kano and Kogi states, in the order of their liability. Others are Oyo, Bauchi, Nasarawa, Borno, Edo, Gombe, Abia, Katsina and Zamfara states, which repealed its own law a few weeks ago.

The rest are Kwara, Enugu, Ebonyi, Niger, Jigawa, Sokoto, Anambra and Yobe states.