On November 24, 2024, this page featured a piece titled: “NASS Pensioners: How Akpabio, Abbas should not treat the elderly.” That piece was a chronicle of the push by retirees of the National Assembly to give life to the National Assembly Pensions Act passed into law in 2023. The Council of Retired Clerks and Permanent Secretaries of the National Assembly, the senior class of retired workers had decided to take the fate of the retirees in its hands by putting forward the Chairman of its Board of Trustees Chairman, Dr. Adamu Mohammed Fika and other board members to lead the ‘save our soul’ drive.
As the story went, then Dr. Fika, the man who presided over the bureaucratic structure of the National Assembly at its infancy, had led a number of his younger colleagues to hold meetings within the precincts of the National Assembly to press home their desire to end the prolonged delay in the implementation of the NASS Pension Act, something that had made many of the retirees victims of a crime they did not commit. I described in that piece how the 82-year-old Fika had to be wheeled around the offices as council members attempted to keep an appointment with one NASS Principal Officer or the other. It was an eyesore and a sad commentary on how not to treat our elders.
Seven months after that piece was published, I was shocked to read last week that the matter had not been laid to rest and that while, funds allocated to the Pension Board, expected to be inaugurated on the strength of the Act continued to lie fallow in the national budget, the authorities who are empowered to inaugurate the body have continued to watch things go from bad to worse. While as of November last year, 20 retirees were said to have died awaiting their entitlements, and 12 others were on hospital beds, only God knows how many more have joined the list of those gasping for breath as we speak. Their situation has been made more precarious because the National Pensions Commission, had on realizing that the National Assembly Pensions Act has been signed into law, withdrew the names of NASS retirees from its list and handed their data to the management of the National Assembly, pending the inauguration of the NASS Pensions Board.
A letter dated May 17, 2025, addressed to the President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon Tajudeen Abbas and the principal officers of the two chambers, alerted us to another rigmarole in the already unwinding process in the inauguration of the Pensions Board. The letter signed by Dr. Adamu Fika as Board of Trustees Chairman of the Council of Retired Clerks and Secretaries of the National Assembly and Prince Oluyemi Ogunyomi, Secretary of the Council, intimated the nation to a plan to amend the National Assembly Pensions Act, even when it has not been operated for one day.
According to the letter, the NASS Pension Act is a law meant for the protection of private persons and that such a law cannot be amended in a way to involve people whose interests are not captured in the law. The seasoned technocrats also stated that the law should not be amended when it has not even been operated, and that it is after it has been operated for some time that relevant sections due for amendment can be determined.
The veteran clerks to the National Assembly wrote: “The procedure for enacting legislations affecting private interest is set out in section 91 of the Senate Standing Orders and Order 15 of the House of Representatives.
“The National Assembly Service Pensions Act, 2023 was enacted in accordance with the Senate and the House of Representatives’ rules and procedures in 2023. Implementation has been delayed because the appointing Authority of Board members would appear not to take cognizance of the fact that the law is enacted to protect the interest of National Assembly Service Retirees. This requires a restricted application of the provisions of the legislation. Although the implementing Agency created by the law is a Board responsible to the National Assembly, like any law in this category proposed, the Implementing agency has codified the regulations and guidelines for the application of the law.
“Further to the above, the leadership of the 10th National Assembly provided the take-off fund of the National Assembly Service Pensions Board in the 2024 Appropriation Act.”
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The letter listed some points that nullify the proposed amendment of the Act. The facts indicated that the law was passed: “To ensure that the application of the legislation is restricted to only those persons (National Assembly Retirees) whose interest is affected by the law, specific language limiting its application to National Assembly Retirees only was deployed in crafting the legislation.” The veteran legislative bureaucrats also stated that “In addition, regulatory guidance has been provided in the manual designed for the interpretation and the implementation of the law to ensure that the law applies only to those whose interest it is meant to protect.” They noted that “The beneficiaries of the law have been defined and determined by the provisions of the Act as well as extant regulations of the National Assembly Service;” and that “RatherPension Act 2023 than embark on a needless amendment being contemplated, it is tidier to allow the board to review the challenges (if any) to the legislation and its application ensuring that the law applies fairly and only to those whose interest it is meant to protect.” They submitted that: “Therefore, it is irregular for this law to be amended without input from the group whose interest the Act seeks to protect. The legislative bureaucracy should have invited the attention of the political leadership of the National Assembly to the status of this law and the protocol for its amendment in accordance with legislative practices globally.”
The Council stated that it will appear that the plan to amend the NASS Pension Act by the leadership of the 10th National Assembly is “unwarranted and unnecessary” because the implementation of the law is yet to commence and that the amendments being proposed to the law cannot be reasonably justified. The Council recommends that the proposed amendment exercise be put on hold until the law is fully implemented and the sections requiring amendment are clearly determined by the operators.
It would interest the Senate President, the Speaker, and the principal officers of the two chambers that the two signatories to the above-quoted letter are not minnows by any estimation. They are not only veterans in the business of lawmaking but critical players in the affairs of the National Assembly not so long ago. While Dr Adamu Mohammed Fika was Permanent Secretary between 1980 and 1989, he was Clerk to the National Assembly between 1990 and 1993 and later served as the Executive Chairman of the National Assembly Service Commission (NASC) between 2013 and 2018. Secretary of the Council of Retired Clerks and Secretaries, Prince Oluyemi Ogunyomi, holds the unique record of being the only Nigerian to have held all the Clerk positions in the National Assembly at one time or the other. He is known as the encyclopedia of the Nigerian Constitution, having served on all the constitution-making bodies from 1978 to 1999. He was Clerk of the House of Representatives between 1999 and 2003; Clerk of Senate between 2003 and 2005; Deputy Clerk to the National Assembly (DCNA) between 2005 and 2009 and then Clerk to the National Assembly (CNA) between 2009 and 2010. Ogunyomi also happened to be the Clerk to the National Assembly, who wrote the famous Doctrine of Necessity, which was passed into law by the 7th session of the National Assembly, to make Dr. Good luck, Jonathan Acting President in February 2010 and ending the logjam over the prolonged absence of the then President Umaru Yar’Adua. So, it is strange to even insinuate that the current National Assembly would want to sidestep the plea or advice of such a calibre of men.
But power is powerful, as they say, and thus, the veterans can only appeal to the powers that be today to lift the hammer with which they have locked down the all-important Pension Act such that despite the budgetary provisions made for the Pensions Board in the 2024 and 2025 budgets, the inauguration of the Board has remained a matter of needless debates.
What is even stranger still is the unclear role of the incumbent Clerk to the National Assembly (CNA) in the whole drama. It was said in 2024 that the then CNA was the one orchestrating the delayed implementation of the Pension Act 2023, allegedly on account of some personal misgivings. Perhaps the said CNA had forgotten that he was just a few months away from joining the rank of the retirees. Now that a new CNA is in the saddle, one expects that he would realise the fragility of time and advise the political leadership of the Assembly appropriately. In a not so distant future, today will become yesterday, the day will break, and the incumbent will join the rank of retirees. Maybe then, he would realise his entitlements too would be in the long queue. Maybe some current office holders usually think tomorrow would never come. It’s possible some of them think that those who talk about gratuities or pensions after retirement are those who fail to keep enough buckets of water ahead of the period of thirst. They would find out that such a notion is deadly wrong. No matter the amount of buckets of water you even keep, your entitlement should not be denied by anyone.
Give unto Caesar, what is Caesar’s and unto God what is for God, so said Jesus Christ when he was confronted with a question on taxation.
I think the men and women in the National Assembly should learn to give unto Caesar what belongs unto Caesar, especially when Caesar is not obstructing Paul and Silas from taking their feel. I so move!
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