Under RMAFC guidelines, the former president, the vice president, past ministers and presidential aides as well as non-returning federal lawmakers will continue to be paid until 2016. Their severance allowances are contained in the remuneration package put together by the RMAFC valued at about N3.24bn (£10.5m).
According to the Federal Ministry of Finance, the allowances of the political office holders who left office last Friday, were not captured in this year’s budget. Nigeria's 2015 budget, which was passed by the National Assembly and signed by President Jonathan on April 28, makes a provision of N2.3bn for entitlements of former presidents/heads of state and vice presidents/chiefs of general staff.
One finance ministry official explained that the severance pay was not captured in this year’s budget because as of last year when the 2015 budget was being prepared, the outcome of the April 2015 elections could not be ascertained. He said since the outcome of the elections could not be predicted, there was no way the Budget Office could have determined the number of political office holders that would not be re-elected.
"You will recall that the 2015 budget was prepared sometime last year and during the budget preparation, the elections had not been held. So it would be wrong to include the severance package of political office holders in the budget because as of the time it was prepared, these people were still holding political offices.
“Secondly, including their severance package before the elections were conducted would mean that we were pre-empting the outcome of a political process. So what we do is to wait for the outcome of elections and on the strength of this, we can know the number of people that have left office and those re-elected," the official explained."
He added that as for those political office holders that are leaving office this year, their severance package would be included in the 2016 budget, which will be prepared later in the year. Under the severance package put together by the RMAFC, President Jonathan is entitled to 300% of his annual basic salary.
Currently, the Nigerian president’s annual basic salary is put at N3,514,705, making President Jonathan's severance pay N10,544,115. Vice president Sambo is also entitled to 300% of his annual basic salary put at N3,031,572.50, meaning that his severance allowance is N9,094,717.50 and he too will be getting some constitutional entitlements and perks.
About 76 senators are not returning to the National Assembly either because they did not stand for election or because they lost their bids to return, so are entitled to N462,019,200. Like President Jonathan and vice president Sambo, they are entitled to 300% of their annual basic salaries as severance allowances, amounting to N6, 079,200 per senator.
In the House of Representatives, about 290 members are not returning and each of them is entitled to N5,955,637.50, adding up to a total of N1,727,134,875. Each of the senior ministers is entitled to N6, 079,200, while each of the ministers of state will receive N5,872,740.
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