Why Yari needs N10m for upkeep

When Zamfara State government leaked a confidential letter last week, showing that former state governor Abdulaziz Yari Abubakar wrote to current Governor Bello Mutawalle asking for his N10m monthly upkeep allowance to be paid plus several months’ arrears, it breached protocol, confidentiality, secrecy and administrative decorum. It also unfairly dragged the name of Yari into […]

When Zamfara State government leaked a confidential letter last week, showing that former state governor Abdulaziz Yari Abubakar wrote to current Governor Bello Mutawalle asking for his N10m monthly upkeep allowance to be paid plus several months’ arrears, it breached protocol, confidentiality, secrecy and administrative decorum. It also unfairly dragged the name of Yari into the mud.

Many people in Zamfara State and beyond have been saying that it was cruel, unconscionable, wicked, insensitive and un-Islamic for Yari, who claims to be a learned Muslim Shehi, who once conducted preaching sessions that were broadcast live on the radio, to demand such a huge amount from the lean Zamfara State treasury for his personal upkeep, in addition to a pension equivalent to the salary that the current governor is drawing.

I am not about to join in the public, airborne, cyber-assisted lynching of Yari just because he demanded enforcement of a law. In March this year, with two months to go before the end of his eight-year tenure and with elections already held to choose his successor, Yari introduced a bill which provided for generous pension and upkeep allowances for the state’s ex-governors, their deputies, state assembly speakers and their deputies. The Assembly, then controlled by APC, allegedly the party of change and anti-corruption, quickly passed the bill into law without asking any questions.

Was it Yari’s fault? Why didn’t the 24 members ask him why he was bringing to them a pension bill for ex-political office holders in the twilight of his tenure? Did they ask him why anyone, apart from retired judges and former Vice Chancellors, should continue to receive the salary of an office long after he left it? Since the Assembly did not ask, no one told it about this.

No State Assembly member asked if the pension of retired civil servants, judicial officers and teachers, which is best described as paltry, was regularly paid during Yari’s two terms as governor. Did they ask why it was that two years ago, the state’s civil service and pensioners’ unions together trooped to a mosque, poured invectives on Yari and his administration, and prayed for evil to befall him and his family? They alleged that pensions were not paid and that the state did not implement the N18,000 minimum wage. The MPs didn’t ask that question when they speedily passed the bill and Governor Yari speedily assented to it.

Zamfara State already had two former Fourth Republic governors in March this year. If you start counting from the Second and Third Republics, you must add Dr. Garba Nadama and Malam Yahaya Abdulkarim. Even though these two were governors of the old Sokoto State, they are both Zamfara State natives who should be covered by the pension law. Did any MP ask Yari if he paid generous pension to his four predecessors and why he only remembered about ex-governors’ pension when he was set to join them in retirement?

No one asked those questions before the bill was hurriedly passed. No Zamfara MP asked why a state governor who led the governors’ national forum during the protracted minimum wage negotiations to insist on N22,000 national minimum wage should recommend a monthly upkeep allowance 454.5 times that amount. Did any MP asked Yari why he believed a Nigeria family could survive on N22,000 but that some families need N10 million for upkeep? No one asked, so no one got an answer.

In the olden days, a public officer did not superintend over the making of a policy that will directly benefit himself or herself. He waited until he vacated office, then his former colleagues, in appreciation of his selfless service, fixed a pension for him, assuming there was no existing pension policy. No Zamfara MP asked Yari why he sponsored that eminently self-serving law. This is the post-shyness age.

You see, I wrote four column articles about Yari during his eventful tenure. One was when he said he must travel abroad frequently in order to attend to his personal businesses. The second time was when he said despite his frequent travel, he could govern the state from inside an aircraft. The third time was when he said the measles outbreak in the state was because of its people’s homosexuality and fornication. I unkindly asked at the time why was there no measles outbreak in Los Angeles, which has hundreds of gay bars. The last time I wrote about Yari was when he was in deadly struggle against party rivals and ANC national leaders to anoint his successor as governor, migrate himself to the Senate and also anoint APC candidates for every available state and federal post. The result was a PDP clean sweep. Not at the polls, but at the Supreme Court.

After those four unkind articles, I have had a rethink and I am now determined to support Yari to get his N10m upkeep allowance, higher than that if possible. All those people who are saying that the amount is too much do not know what it costs to maintain a former governor such as Yari in comfort and pleasure. N10million plus the equivalent of a current governor’s salary will last only a few days if, like Yari, you own palatial homes in Abuja, Kaduna, Gusau, Talata Mafara, and quite possibly in Sokoto, Lagos and London as well.

Tenement rates, NEPA bills, water bills, diesel for generators, security, servants’ wages, servicing and fueling of cars, DSTV, WIFI, postpaid phone bills, school fees, hospital bills, bills of masons, glaziers, carpenters, plumbers and electricians, food, drinks, cooking gas, chartered planes and hotel bills, how much do you think all these will cost Yari per month?

I think Yari has three wives. Being a Shehi, he probably has no mistresses but he might be trying to close the “gap” left open when he tried but failed to marry President Buhari’s daughter. Now, no upper middle-class wife in Nigeria is complete these days without frequent holiday, shopping, medical, ante-natal, child graduation and alleged religious trips to Dubai, Europe, Saudi Arabia and USA. Do you want Yari to let his wives down by failing to fund such trips?

You should not forget one very important thing. Zamfara State APC has no elected public officer of any kind right now, so its treasury is very dry. His opponents having walked away, it is Yari who is trying to maintain the state party chapter through infrequent visits. These cost a fortune. Even before he comes to Zamfara, party supporters will follow him to Abuja and Kaduna and it costs a lot to feed, accommodate them and refund their transport costs as well as their own upkeep allowances. If you consider all that, rather than repeal the pension law, Zamfara State Assembly should have increased Yari’s upkeep allowance to N30million a month.

I don’t want some old-time readers to remind me of my encounter with Alhaji Umaru Yar’adua in 2000 AD. I asked the governor why he was so austere that Katsina people called him “Sayyidina Umar,” travelling with his aides in one car, serving very cheap food in Government House, and not switching on the generator that day I was with him even though it was a hot May afternoon. Malam Umaru stared blankly at me, then said, “I have no fears for myself when I leave office. Even if I am used to comfort, I can readjust to any situation. My fear is for women and children. If they are used to comfort, they find it very difficult to adjust when it ends. That is why many public officers steal in order to guarantee the comfort after office.”

Despite his cleric’s seeing powers, Shehi Abdulaziz Yari never foresaw the day when his large family would have to adjust to life outside Government House. ZMSG, please give him N10 million upkeep allowance, or even 30 million.