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Buhari, Osinbajo, Others To Get N64.72bn Severance Packages – Report

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The final pay in office for President Muhammadu Buhari, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, state governors and other political appointees about to leave office may cost the country about N64.72bn.

According to The PUNCH, the figure also covers the pay for ministers, commissioners, National Assembly members, and special advisers.

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It, however, does not include special assistants and state assembly members.

The allocations by the Revenue Mobilisation and Fiscal Allocation Commission for salaries and allowances for one month, as well as severance gratuity (300 per cent of basic salary), were analysed to arrive at the figures.

More specifically, aside from the basic for the last month in office, the figure includes allowances, such as hardship allowance (50 per cent of basic salary), Consistency allowance (250 per cent of basic salary), motor vehicle fueling allowance (75 per cent of basic salary), entertainment allowance (45 per cent of basic salary), among others.

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As stipulated by RMAFAC, Buhari is expected to get N1.71m, which includes basic salary and a few allowances and N10.54m as severance gratuity.

Vice-President Osinbajo is expected to get N1.01m plus N9.09m severance pay.

The eight special advisers in the Presidency are expected to get N590,957, which includes basic salary and a few allowances, and N5.83m severance pay each.

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In total, N51.37m will be spent on the special advisers under the Presidency.

There are 44 ministers under Buhari, consisting of 27 federal ministers and 17 ministers of state.

READ ALSO: BREAKING: I Will Never Call Tinubu ‘My President’ – Tunde Bakare

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While each minister is entitled to N6.73m (which includes basic salary, some allowances and severance pay), each minister of state is entitled to N6.5m.

In total, they would get N292.21m, with ministers getting N181.71m and ministers of states receiving N110.5m.

Each special adviser under the minister is entitled to a final pay of N6.42m. With each minister having one special adviser, the total sum of N282.48m will be spent.

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The PUNCH checks indicate that about 327 National Assembly members would not be returning to the office.

This is made up of 76 Senators and 251 members of the House of Representatives.

While the senators will get N7.14m each, the House of Representatives members will get N6.75m each.

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In total, the final pay in office of the 327 National Assembly members will cost the country about N2.24bn.

Although governorship elections were held in about 28 states, no fewer than 18 state governors will hand over to their successors on May 29, 2023.

The outgoing governors include Nyesom Wike (Rivers State), Ifeanyi Okowa (Delta State), Udom Emmanuel (Akwa Ibom State), Abdullahi Ganduje (Kano State), Badaru Abubakar (Jigawa State), Bello Matawalle (Zamfara State), Ben Ayade (Cross River State), Okezie Ikpeazu (Abia State), and David Umahi (Ebonyi State).

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Other outgoing governors include Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi (Enugu State), Samuel Ortom (Benue State), Darius Ishaku (Taraba State), Abubakar Bello (Niger State), Abubakar Bagudu (Kebbi State), Nasir El-Rufai (Kaduna State), Simon Lalong (Plateau State), Aminu Masari (Katsina State) and Aminu Tambuwal (Sokoto State).

The outgoing governors will be completing two terms of eight years in office on May 28, 2023, except Zamfara’s Matawalle, who lost his re-election attempt.

Each governor is entitled to a final pay of N7.32m while the deputy governor gets N6.96m. In total, state governors will get N131.76m while their deputies would be paid N125.28m.

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With each commissioner entitled to N4.42m, a total of 356 state commissioners will get N1.57bn.

READ ALSO: Buhari Must Be Told He Failed Woefully — Ortom

Special advisers at the state level are by law entitled to N4.13m each. The 18 states have about 14,529 special advisers in total, which would cost the public treasury over N60bn.

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Rivers State is expected to pay out a huge final pay on account of the high number of political appointees engaged by Governor Nyesom Wike, who last year appointed 14,000 special advisers.

The beneficiaries of the end-of-tenure pay also include the eight commissioners.

The Enugu State House Assembly has a total of 24 seats while the executive arm boasts 25 commissioners with an undisclosed number of special advisers.

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Governor Tambuwal of Sokoto State was reported to have appointed over 50 special advisers. The governor recently appointed another 15 special advisers to compensate the members of his party who lost out in the Peoples Democratic Party primaries. The state also boasts of about 21 commissioners supervising different ministries.

The PUNCH earlier reported that no fewer than 18 outgoing state governors will retire into lives of luxury with generous pension benefits despite mounting debts and unpaid workers’ salaries.

The PUNCH investigations showed that the governors, who will hand over to their successors on May 29, 2023, would be leaving behind at least N3.06tn debt for the incoming administrations.

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READ ALSO: Buhari Receives Asset Declaration Form, Orders Outgoing Officials To Do Same

According to data from the Debt Management Office, states’ debts included N2.27tn domestic loans and $1.71bn foreign borrowing.

In a report, a senior economist with SPM Professionals, Mr Paul Alaje, described the pay and benefits as a burden on the states.

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He said, “The pension is a burden for any payer, the government and the state. It only shows that people think they don’t have a life outside political offices and that is why such an amount will be budgeted for somebody who is no longer in office and who is not contributing directly to the growth and development of the state… It is unrealistic for this practice to continue. More than 60 to 70 per cent of our states are bleeding in terms of financial boost and this continues every four years.

“What we are doing is, we are deliberately plunging our country into a coma. A time will come and we are close to it when all we are generating as internally generated revenue will just be enough salaries and pensions, and only take care of political officeholders without any infrastructural development. We must condemn in strong terms the spending of the little resources we have to better the lives of politicians at the detriment of the states.”
PUNCH

 

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Syrian Ex-leader Assad Faces War Crime Charges For Killing Journalists

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French judicial authorities have issued arrest warrants for ousted Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and six other top former officials over the bombardment of a rebel-held city in 2012 that killed two journalists, lawyers said Tuesday.

Marie Colvin, 56, an American working for The Sunday Times of Britain, and French photographer Remi Ochlik, 28, were killed on February 22, 2012, by the explosion in the eastern city of Homs, which is being investigated by the French judiciary as a potential crime against humanity as well as a war crime.

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British photographer Paul Conroy, French reporter Edith Bouvier, and Syrian translator Wael Omar were wounded in the attack on the informal press centre where they had been working.

READ ALSO:France’s Top Court Annuls Arrest Warrant Against Syria’s Ex-president al-Assad

Assad escaped with his family to Russia after being ousted by Islamist rebels at the end of 2024, although his precise whereabouts have not been confirmed.

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Other than Assad, the warrants notably target his brother Maher al-Assad, who was the de facto head of the 4th Syrian armoured division at the time, intelligence chief Ali Mamlouk, and then-army chief of staff Ali Ayoub.

The issuing of the seven arrest warrants is a decisive step that paves the way for a trial in France for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Bashar al-Assad’s regime,” said Clemence Bectarte, lawyer for the Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and Ochlik’s parents.

READ ALSO:US Embassy Warns Americans In Nigeria Of Looming Visa Overstay Penalties

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The FIDH said the journalists had clandestinely entered the besieged city to “document the crimes committed by Bashar al-Assad’s regime” and were victims of a “targeted bombing”.

The investigation clearly established that the attack on the informal press centre was part of the Syrian regime’s explicit intention to target foreign journalists to limit media coverage of its crimes and force them to leave the city and the country,” said Mazen Darwish, lawyer and director of the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM).

Colvin was known for her fearless reporting and signature black eye patch, which she wore after losing sight in one eye in an explosion during Sri Lanka’s civil war. Her career was celebrated in a Golden Globe-nominated film, “A Private War”.

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Ghana’s President Sacks Chief Justice Over Corruption Allegations

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President John Dramani Mahama has dismissed the Chief Justice of Ghana following the outcome of a high-level investigation into allegations of falsifying judicial records and misusing public funds.

A five-member commission, chaired by a Supreme Court judge and set up by Mahama, concluded that the allegations against the country’s top judicial officer were substantiated and recommended her removal.

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After considering the petition and the evidence, the Committee found that the grounds of stated misbehaviour under Article 146(1) had been established and recommended her removal from office,” said the spokesperson to the President, Felix Ofosu, in a statement on Monday.

READ ALSO:Police Bust Lagos-Ghana Sex Trafficking Ring

President John Dramani Mahama has accordingly removed the Chief Justice from office with immediate effect.”

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The dismissal marks the first time a sitting Chief Justice in Ghana has been investigated and dismissed from office.

While Mahama, who took office in January, has repeatedly pledged to intensify the fight against corruption, it remains unclear whether the embattled Chief Justice, Gertrude Torkonoo, will face criminal prosecution.

 

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Danish Court Sentences Ex-minister To Prison For Child Abuse Material

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A former Danish government minister was jailed for four months on Monday for possession of thousands of images of child sexual abuse.

Henrik Sass Larsen, once a senior Social Democrat who served as industry minister, admitted to having more than 6,000 photographs and 2,000 videos on his computer depicting sexual abuse of children.

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He had denied the charges, saying he had the material because he was trying to find out who had abused him as a child.

Prosecutor Maria Cingari said she was “satisfied” with the verdict but added that it was sad that someone “who managed to make the most out of their life despite a bad start finds himself in such a situation.”

READ ALSO:JUST IN: Finnish Court Jails Simon Ekpa Six Years For Terrorism Offences

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You should never be in possession of child pornography, no matter the reason,” Cingari added.

During his trial, the 59-year-old told the court he had received a link in 2018 to a 50-year-old video showing him being sexually abused when he was three years old.

He testified that he received another video clip in 2020, in which a three-year-old girl was raped in his presence when he was around the same age.

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The two videos disappeared after he viewed them, he said.

READ ALSO:South African Court Affirms 18-year Jail Term For Nigerian Over Human Trafficking

He told the court he regretted not having contacted the police when he received the videos.

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Sass Larsen was also accused of being in possession of a child sex doll, but the court did not find him guilty on that charge.

His lawyer, Berit Ernst, told reporters that “we’ll see if it is a definitive end or if we will appeal.”

The scandal came to light last March and led to his expulsion from the Social Democratic Party.

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At the time, Social Democratic Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen expressed her shock over the case.

AFP

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