Yari Paid Himself #360m Pension Shortly Before He Left Office- Zamfara Governor
Governor
Bello Mohammed Matawalle of Zamfara state has accused the immediate past
governor of the state, Abdul-Aziz Yari Abubakar, of paying himself N360 million
from the state pension funds shortly before he left office.
The
governor said this in Wednesday while assenting to a law stopping jumbo
allowances for former governors, deputies, speakers and their deputies in the
state.
The
Speaker of the state House Assembly, Nasiru Muazu Magarya, and other principal
officers of the House had brought a bill before the governor for assent.
Matawalle,
while assent the bill, said, “If you could remember former governor Yari had
sent a letter to me demanding that his N10 million monthly upkeep allowances be
paid and he was even threatening to take me to court should I fail to pay the
money.
“I called
my deputy, the state assembly speaker and his deputy and asked them whether they
need such mind-boggling allowances and they all answered in negative. Then, we
decided to repeal the law backing the payment and I have assented to it.
“Our
successors will not find it easy to come up with such obnoxious law to pillage
the little resources of the state in the future. There is no reason whatsoever
the state could afford to pay the past leaders a whopping sum of N702 million
annually to the detriment of dying pensioners in the state,” Matawalle said.
“It is on
the record that the backlog of pension and gratuity for local government
workers and primary school teachers left behind by Abdul-Aziz Yari’s
administration stands at N3billion while that of the state government retired
civil servants also stands at N3billion. “What moral justification could be
offered for such a Jumbo package for a select few when the social index has
consistently indicated that the majority of our population lives in abject
poverty?” he queried.
According
to the governor, for anyone to become governor or attain any top position in
the state, or means they were already financially well to do.