Following the passing of former President Muhammadu Buhari, the attention of Nigerians was drawn to the humongous benefits families of former heads of state (Presidents) and vice presidents get from the Federal Government.
These benefits come in the form of money, healthcare, education, vacations, cars, houses, security, communication gadgets, staff and home and office, among others.
These super bumper packages received by the former Presidents are enshrined in the law.
The law permits that the Nigerian government continues to make these whacking provisions to families of former presidents as stipulated in the Remuneration of Former Presidents and Heads of State (and Other Ancillary Matters) Act.
Those left behind to mourn a former President or Vice President are also entitled to allowances from the federal government.
However, News360 Info understands that the benefits paid to the family of a former president will be drastically reviewed downward once the former President passes on.
The Nigerian law, as mentioned earlier, states that families of late former presidents get N1 million annually (N250k quarterly), which is for the spouse’s upkeep and children’s education up to university, and this would end if the spouse remarries.
Sections 1 and 2 of the Remuneration of Former Presidents and Heads of State (and Other Ancillary Matters) Act talk about the allowance and other benefits paid to the families of former Presidents and Vice Presidents.
These benefits are also captured in the annual budget of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
It states that Presidents and Heads of State of the Federal Republic of Nigeria shall be paid the sum of N350,000 per month as upkeep allowance.
Vice Presidents and Chiefs of General Staff will be paid the sum of N250,000 per month as upkeep allowance.
It stipulates that the members of families of deceased former Heads of State shall be entitled to the payment of the sum of
N1,000,000 per annum, payable in the sum of N250,000 per quarter; and
deceased former Vice Presidents shall be entitled to the payment of the sum of N750,000 per annum, payable in the sum of N187,500 per quarter.
The allowances are for the upkeep of the spouse and education of the children of deceased former Heads of State and deceased former Vice Presidents up to the university level.
This remuneration of all former Heads of State and Vice Presidents, according to the law, shall be subject to review whenever there is an increase in the salary of the serving President and Vice President. But all efforts to ascertain the present state of things from the authorities proved abortive.
There are perquisites of office for former Heads of State and the Vice President which include: an officer not below the rank of a Chief Administrative Officer; a Personal Secretary not below Grade Level 12; three to four armed policemen (for a former civilian Head of State); one State Security Service officer not below Grade Level 10 as an Aide-de-Camp to be attached for life and paid by the State Security Agencies; three vehicles to be bought by the Federal Government and liable to be replaced every four years; the drivers shall be selected by the Head of State and paid by the Federal Government; diplomatic passport for life; protocol within and outside Nigeria; free medical treatment for former Heads of State and their immediate family within Nigeria; treatment abroad for former Heads of State and their immediate family where necessary at Federal Government expense.
Others are thirty days of annual vacation within and outside Nigeria at Federal Government expense; a well-furnished and equipped office in any location of the choice of the former President or Head of State in Nigeria; a well-furnished five-bedroom house to be provided in any location of the choice of the former Head of State in Nigeria; non-political mails within and outside Nigeria as franked mail marked “POSTAGE PAID”; one direct telephone line provided at Federal Government expense.
A former Vice President also receives similar perquisites from the Federal Government.
The Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF, confirmed that families of former Presidents, living or dead, are receiving their allowance from the Federal Government but did not elaborate on who gets what.
Speaking to a source in DAILY POST on the said benefits, Segun Simmons Imohioson, Spokesperson to the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation, AGF, affirmed there are benefits, but not just for the families of late former Presidents but also for the living past leaders.
“All I can answer you, whether late or alive, all the past Presidents of the country, of course, get benefits from the government. It’s basic.
“There is a department in the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation that is called the Department of the Affairs of the Former Heads. So that department takes care of all the former Heads of State as well as their wives if they are not alive.”
However, many Nigerians feel these benefits for both the former and late Presidents’ families are not necessary. Some believe that such packages have made the office so attractive that politicians want to kill themselves to ascend power.
Some others feel that Nigerian political elites make laws that benefit and enrich them and do not care about the poor masses.
Some social media comments:
@ToheebAlim: “Despite the fact that they are self-sufficient above all this… a priority misplaced.”
@enyola: “Rubbish that needs to be expunged from the law.”
@sanusi_tunji: “What are the benefits enjoyed by the wife of a deceased soldier while in active duty?”
@ebhos_gideon: “This is only on papers… Meanwhile, behind them they pack millions and billions away…”
@owolabi_st48050: “The law is put in place so that public servants will be faithful, but while in office they mismanaged to favour themselves, family, and friends.”
@Isholanoah01: “Upon all the billions stolen, the constitution still gives them more!”
As for late Muhammadu Buhari, who served Nigeria both as a military Head of State in the 1980s and as a democratically elected President, 2015 to 2023, some Nigerians wonder if he still has any undergraduate child and of what benefit N1 million would be to his family.
Asked if such benefits, specifically the perquisite of free medical treatment abroad for former Presidents, Vice Presidents, and their families, were necessary, and if this is what is obtainable in other climes, a frontline activist and former ActionAid Nigeria Country Director and Convener, Nigeria Civil Society Situation Room, Comrade Mrs. Ene Obi, told DAILY POST that reducing the cost of governance has remained a major concern in Nigeria.
“I think when you look at the cost of governance in Nigeria, you know, you look at it and you wonder whether the government is governing according to the reflection of the people,” she said.
“The issue of social justice is just unclear. Children cannot even get, you know, scholarships to study, and how someone of Buhari’s descent, do they still have children in search of education?
“Is there any child who is not a graduate yet? And all of that.
“So if they’re talking about education for the family and healthcare abroad and all that, this is a government that cannot equip its hospitals enough, but when they go outside, they get treated by Nigerian doctors.
“And so if we have governments that are still projecting that people go outside because of the quality of their health care, those governments have failed.
“It is a failure of the generation. So many generational failures. So the government of Buhari failed in that respect. You know we don’t speak ill of the dead, may his soul rest in peace.
“But the handling of his death by the present administration… now, if you look at the volume and the capacity of people that went to London [to bring back the remains of former President Buhari]…
“The Buhari that I know will say, ‘Simply bring me back’ and not the volume of people going to London. You cannot calculate how much they spent [on the London trip] going to bring him. Buhari would not like that. He was a very simple person. He would never, never like that.
“So the issue of the benefits that will be going to his family… I’m sure he was insured. If he was insured, the insurance should pay for him. So what is all this about other benefits and so on and so forth?
“Nigeria is such… the issue of the cost of governance that we are talking about is a major concern. Most of our politicians are going abroad to take treatment when they ought to build hospitals here, when we have qualified doctors who are living across the country and are serving in different forms. So I’m just angry about a lot of things, but I don’t want to spoil my day.
“How many women are dying on maternity beds? And those that could have the children, having the children, would not have access to funding. Those who succeed in having the children do not have money to pay their bills to come out of the hospitals, and many of us are responsible for their bills.
“Millions of Nigerians are dying because of the cost of healthcare, and our leaders are going abroad. When Dino Melaye at one point brought a proposal and said, ‘No Nigerian political leaders should go out for treatment that is paid for,’ they killed the bill.
“One Head of State is passing away and another Head of State is also abroad for medical treatment. It doesn’t say anything good about the capacity that Nigeria has. Nigeria has the capacity, but we need a government that is directing attention and investment into that.”
