Dear Distinguished,
SEVERANCE PENSION. BURDEN OF CONSCIENCE AND IMPERATIVES FOR SOCIAL INTERVENTION
I am deeply touched to commend your decision to stop the collection of your severance allowances and entitlements as former Governor of Ogun State while serving and drawing salaries and emoluments from another public treasury as an elected Senator representing Ogun East Senatorial Zone. This is a highly commendable velvet discharge of “burden of conscience for selfless service”, one of the rare qualities and conditionalities of service to humanity.
Since I met you, sometimes before your emergence as Governor in your office at Kresta Laurel, Maryland, Lagos as part of students’ leaders in the team of late, Chief Segun Okeowo, a revered legendary leader of the students’ movement in this country, I have noticed your candid uniqueness. The roles you played in the anti-removal of education subsidy protest of the then, National Union of Nigerian Students, NUNS popularly called “Alli Mongo” 1978 as a students’ leader in the University of Lagos as well as a budding Youth Organizer in the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo political machine during the Second Republic distinguished you in my mind as a conscientious statesman.
As I commend your resolution to stop the payment of your pension’s entitlements as former Governor which you have since communicated to Governor Dapo Abiodun in June, I am disturbed with knowledge of the Nigerian factor that these funds would just go down the drain. It is instructive to note that your pacesetting decision has now been followed by another serving Senator, former Governor Ibrahim Dankwambo of Gombe State, while all eyes are now squarely on other serving public officeholders receiving multiple payments of entitlements from the public treasury like the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio.
I, however, believe that these pensions’ entitlements should have been tied to provision of projects that would be exclusively beneficial to the less privileged, mass of citizens and electorates and as well provoked institutional re-evaluations. To this end, I challenge you to deplore your good offices as a Distinguished Senator of the Republic to expand the frontiers for social intervention benefits of this your palpable, humanistic gesture along the following lines :-
i. That, the pension allowances should be used in the provision of determined social infrastructural needs of the people in each of the three Senatorial Zones of the State particularly for the rural communities – portable water, primary healthcare needs like basic drugs, sanitary tools, support for primary education etc.
ii. Advocacy for Constitutional Review through the Senate to stop all elected and appointed public officeholders from drawing salaries, allowances, and entitlements from more than a single public treasury account.
The cost of governance in this democratic dispensation is having heavy toll on the capacity of Governments to deliver real and concrete dividends for the people. Conscientious efforts of the nature you have pioneered may look like a drop in the ocean, but it is vital effort towards restoring public trust, confidence, and if well managed, social reliefs to citizens.
May the Almighty and Humanity continues to preserve, guide and distinguished you in service.
Yours in service to humanity,
E-Signed :-
Omotaje, B. Olawale Saint
WorkBond International Network (WIN)
08106786992
Fatherolakunle@gmail.com
