Six current governors and 12 of their former colleagues, 18 altogether, are jostling to be at the Senate in 2027, going by the media analysis of the lists of candidates contesting the next general elections released recently by the Independent National Electoral Commission(INEC).
Thirteen former governors are in the current 10th National Assembly. Many of these former governors-now- senators are part of the lawmakers seeking to waggle their way back to the upper chamber of the federal parliament in 2027, with the general elections just three months away.
The tendency for their excellencies to recycle themselves has been recurrent since the beginning of the present democratic dispensation in 1999. They are fast turning the upper chamber into a ‘retirement’ arena for themselves. Some of them who became governors in 1999 have, as a matter of fact, been in and out of the Senate since 2007 when they completed their two terms of eight years.
The predilection of our politicians for the odious and the ludicrous is legendary. Some of the governors and former governors often employ the Machiavelli style — the end justifies the means — to secure their ticket into the Red Chamber. They elbow themselves through by resorting to all kinds of subterfuges to supplant occupants of the senatorial seats they eye.
One of the current governors contesting the National Assembly elections in January 2027 reached into his rich bag of political treachery and brickmanship to edge out the incumbent of his Senatorial District during the National Assembly party primaries.
He simply summoned a clandestine ‘stakeholders’ meeting of his party in the Senatorial District, to which the incumbent senator, who is still interested in running for the same office, was not invited. The meeting simply ‘anointed’ His Excellency as the Senatorial candidate for the 2027 contest by consensus arrangement.
The incumbent, also a former governor of the state, however, got wind of the kangaroo meeting midway and, in a howling rage, hurtled to the venue but was denied entry. That was how the rug was pulled off under his feet. He, of course, raised hell and put up a fierce resistance but His Excellency still had his way. In a democracy!
The case of the current Imo State governor, Hope Uzodimma, is even more dramatic. Full of histrionics. It stands out like a gaudy anthill in the desert. The governor has clinched the ticket to run for the Imo West Senatorial seat in the 2027 general elections on the platform of his party, All Progressives Congress (APC).
He previously represented the same Senatorial District from 2011 to 2019 before becoming governor.
The snag, however, is that his second term as governor will not end until January 2028, while the 11th Senate is expected to be inaugurated in June 2027. His answer is his plan to resign as governor before his tenure expires and switch to the Senate if he wins the general election, leaving his deputy to complete his term.
But the ambition of the Imo governor, who is the Secretary of the APC Presidential Campaign Council(APC PCC), is already stirring ripples among the party’s inner caucus. His ambition to replace Godswill Akpabio as Senate President in the 11th Senate is the allure driving his desperation to resign as governor and switch to the Senate.
It appears his aspiration enjoys the blessing of the presidency. This came to light last Wednesday at the inauguration of the APC PCC at the State House, Abuja, where the incumbent Senate President, Akpabio, made a dramatic public appeal to President Bola Tinubu not to ditch him for another candidate.
He openly asked Mr President to support his bid for re-election as leader of the 11th Senate in 2027. He also appealed to the president to discourage Governor Uzodimma from aspiring to replace him as Senate president.
Akpabio also sent a veiled warning to the Imo governor (although he did not mention his name directly), cautioning him to concentrate on his current responsibilities as governor instead of angling for the upper chamber before completing his second term as governor.
But Uzodimma stylishly gave the Senate President the short shrift. He demurred immediately. He insisted he would run for the Senate against the run of play. He told the gathering that the president’s re-election bid was inseparable from the electoral fortunes of other APC candidates, including himself.
“Mr President, you will be on the ballot on January 16, 2027. But if we are honest with ourselves, so will we…I will be on the ballot as a senatorial candidate. So, all of us. The challenge of re-electing Mr President is the challenge of re-electing every member of APC,” he said defiantly.
His ambition, according to the grapevine, is, however, already causing friction and bad blood among top echelon of the Red Chamber, many of whom whom have already posited to work for Akpabio’s reelection as Senate President.
Meanwhile, Uzodimma’s predecessor, Rocha Okorocha, who ran for the senatorial primary election with him, is raising his own dust by the side. He has dragged the governor to court, seeking the nullification of his election as Imo West Senatorial candidate and his(Okorocha’s) declaration as the authentic winner.
In a way, seeking to represent one-third of their states as senators after governing the entire states for two terms of eight years is akin to a demotion for the governors. But they do not seem to give a damn owing to their rapacious greed.
It is the humongous emoluments— official and hidden — the governors receive as senators that are driving their desperation for the federal parliament. Official data from the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC), the body legally tasked with fixing public officials’ salaries in Nigeria, states that a Nigerian senator receives ₦1,063,860 per month in regular salary and allowances.
However, public scrutiny is loud concerning additional non-regular allowances and multi-million naira monthly “running costs” that significantly swell their total take-home pay.
According to the commission’s framework, the official monthly package consists of basic salary: ₦168,866.70; constituency allowance: ₦422,166.66; motor vehicle motor vehicle fuelling and maintenance: ₦126,650.00; and domestic staff allowance: ₦126,650.00.
Others include entertainment allowance: ₦50,660.00; utilities allowance:₦50,660.00; wardrobe allowance:₦42,216.66; personal assistant allowance:₦42,216.66; newspapers and periodicals:₦25,330.00; and house maintenance:₦8,443.33.
Senators are also entitled to specific periodic lump sums once per four-year legislative tenure. They are furniture allowance: ₦6,079,200; severance gratuity: ₦6,079,200; motor vehicle loan: An optional, repayable facility of up to ₦8,105,600.
However, there has been a lingering controversy about some hidden “running costs” allowances, which the senators are believed to be earning in addition to the official RMAFC figures.
Disclosures from serving and former lawmakers indicate that senators’ actual monthly receipts far exceed the basic ₦1.06 million statutory limit due to institutional overheads, which are between ₦13.5 million and ₦21 million.
Former Senator Shehu Sani and Senator Kawu Sumaila had disclosed that while their official base salary matches RMAFC standards, each senator receives between ₦13.5 million and ₦21 million monthly under the umbrella of “office running costs.”
But RMAFC, in disowning these “running costs,” clarified that managing and distributing such operational funding is handled directly by the National Assembly Service Commission.
The mind-boggling reality is that many of these governors -turned-senators are earning these hefty legislative emoluments paripasu with prodigious exit packages and pension payments they had approved for themselves at the twilight of their second term as governors. It is simply insufferably sickening!
While the exact details vary depending on the specific state’s laws, these post-tenure packages traditionally feature highly lucrative provisions funded entirely from the public purse.
They include 100% basic salary: Former governors and their deputies often receive life pensions equivalent to the full basic salary of the sitting incumbent; full luxury housing, which entails provision of fully funded, furnished residential homes, located both in the state capital and the Federal Capital Territory (Abuja).
Others include up to three to six brand-new, often bulletproof, utility vehicles and cars, fully maintained by the state and scheduled for complete replacement every three to four years; medical cover, which include uncapped, fully paid medical care for the ex-governors and their immediate family members, both locally and internationally.
There is also provision for domestic and security staff consisting of a permanent retinue of cooks, stewards, drivers, gardeners and security details paid directly from the state’s consolidated revenue fund.
Other are allowances consisting of massive severance grants (often 300% of annual basic salary), alongside dedicated allowances for entertainment, utilities and domestic maintenance.
It is befuddling and totally unacceptable for the former governors to continue to earn these two packages simultaneously while they are in the National Assembly. It stands logic on its head. There is no precedent for the repugnant practice anywhere else in the world.
As a matter of fact, in the United States of America from where we literally “cloned” the presidential system of government, the legislative business is a part time venture and the lawmakers earn only sitting allowances.
Virtually all the legislators have their respective professions. They meet periodically and legislate on a part time basis and retreat to their respective private pursuits till the next sitting. In other words, unlike Nigeria where our lawmakers constitute irritable leeches to the national purse, American legislators do not wholly depend on their legislative stipends for a living.
We, therefore, recommend that henceforth, all former governors making it to the Senate should have their exit and pension payments suspended throughout their tenure in the federal parliament. The packages can then be restored to them whenever they lose their return bid or decide on their own to end their tenure.
It is sheer imprudence to continue to indulge the former governors- turned- senators with these primitive accumulations at a time the economy is in dire straits and misery is literally strutting the land. It is patently injudicious.
The negative headwinds arising from this administration’s hard economic policies have foisted on the generality of Nigerians an unprecedented regime of hunger and poverty.
The twin-policies of the sudden withdrawal of fuel subsidies and liberalization of the foreign exchange policy have thrown up unprecedented inflationary trends spiraling the costs of living, including staple food items, transportation and medicals, plunging the people in deeper and deeper misery by the day. The deleterious effects linger.
Consequently, going by the 2026 Global Multidimensional Poverty Index, Nigeria recorded the world’s largest increase in the number of people living in multidimensional poverty, with 17.9 million more citizens affected between 2021 and 2024.
The report, released last Monday by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), showed that Nigeria’s progress in poverty reduction between 2018 and 2021 was reversed in the subsequent three years.
The country recorded the highest absolute increase in the number of poor people among countries with comparable data, surpassing Afghanistan, which recorded an additional 5.3 million people living in multidimensional poverty during its latest assessment period.
The report said: “In absolute terms, the largest increase in the number of poor people is seen in Nigeria, where although poverty had decreased in the previous period (2018–2021), in the recent period (2021–2024), 17.9 million people became multidimensionally poor.”
The Multidimensional Poverty Index measures deprivation beyond income, examining access to essential services and living conditions, including education, healthcare, nutrition, electricity, drinking water, sanitation and adequate housing.
According to the report’s harmonised historical estimates, the nation’s multidimensional poverty rate increased from 33 per cent in 2021 to 38.7 per cent in 2024, representing a rise of 5.7 percentage points.
The number of affected Nigerians increased from 72.21 million to 90.07 million during the period, while the country’s MPI value rose from 0.175 to 0.208, indicating worsening deprivation.
A separate national estimate for 2024, however, put the number of multidimensionally poor Nigerians at 113.32 million, representing 48.7 per cent of the population. According to the report, this figure was based on the latest survey without the adjustments applied to the historical comparison.
Nigeria was among five countries that recorded increases in multidimensional poverty during their respective assessment periods. The others were Afghanistan, the Central African Republic, Guinea and Kyrgyzstan.
It is thus grossly unconscionable and highly reprehensible for a group of people to continue to earn these obscene perquisites simultaneously in the midst of searing poverty and unprecedented cost-of-living crises that have left the larger population literally begwraggled.
The labour unions, civil society organizations and the media have a responsibility to take up the gauntlet and press this cause home. It is likely to be a long-drawn constitutional battle because those concerned wield a lot of power.
Asking that they be made to lose that tawdry privilege is akin to separating the bees from their honeycomb. They will not give up without a fight. But the turpitude must stop. The battle must be fought and won. The people’s will must prevail.
