Moses Ayodele Orji’s latest intervention is written with admirable confidence. Unfortunately, confidence is not a substitute for arithmetic.
The portion devoted to Dr Ebere Uzoukwa is particularly revealing. Ebere is accused of doing a “perfunctory job” merely because he described Governor Alex Otti’s approach to the gratuity problem as compassionate and responsible. One would have expected the author, having invoked corruption, integrity, public finance and pension administration in one breath, to confront Ebere’s actual figures.
Instead, we are treated to “Whaaat!”
Wonderful argument.
But public finance is not WhatsApp theatre. It has numbers.
The first inconvenient fact is that Ebere Uzoukwa did not invent the ₦61.8 billion gratuity liability. Following a review of the State Pension Board and Local Government Pension Board records, the Abia Government announced an outstanding gratuity liability of approximately ₦61.8 billion. Of this amount, about ₦7.2 billion accumulated between 2001 and 2010; ₦43.6 billion accumulated between 2011 and May 29, 2023; while ₦10.9 billion accumulated from May 30, 2023 to 2026. Payments to verified beneficiaries from the oldest 2001–2010 cohort have already commenced.
That is the factual foundation of Ebere’s argument.
So what exactly is “perfunctory” about explaining a verified liability, identifying when it accumulated, stating that payment has commenced and explaining the financing framework?
Perhaps “perfunctory” has acquired a new meaning.
The government has also announced that the outstanding gratuity obligation will be incorporated into the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework and annual budgets from 2026 to 2031, with payments routed to verified beneficiaries through a dedicated system linked to the Treasury Single Account.
This is not evidence of indifference. It is evidence of a government attempting to convert decades of disorder into a predictable fiscal obligation.
There is a fundamental distinction between refusing to pay pensioners and sequencing the payment of a massive inherited liability in a manner that does not cripple salaries, roads, healthcare, education, security and other obligations of government.
No responsible government simply empties its treasury into one inherited liability irrespective of competing obligations.
Governance is not conducted like an angry family meeting where somebody shouts, “Pay everybody today!”
Budgets exist because resources are finite.
The very idea of a Medium-Term Expenditure Framework is to ensure that obligations are recognised, funded, programmed and discharged over a sustainable period. To ridicule such a framework while simultaneously demanding responsible public finance is quite an achievement.
Then comes the spectacular assertion that Abia now receives “over ₦60 billion every month.”
From where?
Available public fiscal figures do not support the impression that ₦60 billion simply drops into the Abia State Government treasury every month as free and disposable cash.
There is an elementary distinction between gross federation inflows, state allocations, local-government allocations, internally generated revenue, grants, loans, capital receipts and funds tied to specific obligations.
They cannot simply be gathered into one political basket and announced as “Otti receives ₦60 billion every month.”
That is not public finance.
That is addition without classification.
And classification matters.
If local-government allocations are included, they are not automatically state government money.
If loans are included, they are liabilities, not income.
If grants are included, many are purpose-specific.
If internally generated revenue is included, collection costs and statutory obligations remain.
If capital receipts are included, they cannot simply be treated as free cash available for pension liquidation.
One would expect anybody alleging “financial manipulation” to first demonstrate command of these distinctions.
The comparison with Akwa Ibom is equally adventurous.
Akwa Ibom itself has been paying inherited gratuity obligations progressively over time. It did not wave a magic wand and eliminate the entire stock overnight.
So the principle being condemned in Abia—sequencing inherited liabilities across budget cycles—is precisely the principle other states have also used.
There goes the dramatic theory that compassion can only be measured by whether every historical liability is extinguished in one afternoon.
Now to the much-discussed pension controversy.
In 2024, the Otti administration committed roughly ₦10 billion to clearing accumulated pension arrears affecting thousands of retirees.
That intervention was not imaginary.
It was not a press release without payment.
Real pensioners received money.
The controversy that later emerged centred largely on the interpretation of balances, waivers, negotiated settlements and the distinction between pension arrears and gratuity obligations.
Those distinctions matter enormously.
Pension and gratuity are not the same liability.
A government may clear verified pension arrears and still have outstanding gratuities.
It is therefore intellectually careless to say that the existence of gratuity liabilities today proves that an earlier statement about clearing pension arrears was necessarily a lie.
That is like saying somebody who has paid his electricity bill must also have paid his mortgage because both are household obligations.
Different obligations.
Different records.
Different payment structures.
Different fiscal treatment.
The attempt to turn these separate categories into one giant accusation may be politically entertaining, but it is financially defective.
And now to the famous ₦10.9 billion said to have accrued during the Otti administration.
This figure is repeatedly presented as though Governor Otti personally borrowed ₦10.9 billion from pensioners, placed it in a suitcase and disappeared.
That is not what an accrued gratuity liability means.
People continue to retire every year.
Every retirement creates new gratuity obligations.
Therefore, even a government that inherited absolutely no gratuity backlog would still accumulate new gratuity liabilities as workers retire.
The existence of ₦10.9 billion attributable to retirees who left service from May 2023 onward does not automatically mean ₦10.9 billion has become delinquent debt.
It certainly does not prove misappropriation.
It does not prove corruption.
It does not prove that the government has “done nothing.”
It merely tells us that new retirement benefits have accrued during the period.
The relevant questions are whether those liabilities have been verified, appropriated, programmed and whether government has established a credible payment pathway.
The available policy direction indicates that it has.
Indeed, the Otti administration deserves some credit precisely because it has attempted to establish the actual size and age profile of liabilities rather than continue the old tradition of keeping pension obligations in an administrative fog.
If previous administrations had maintained clean, reconciled and continuously updated pension and gratuity records, Abia would not today be debating liabilities dating back to 2001.
An administration that conducts verification and discovers old liabilities has not created those liabilities by discovering them.
A doctor who diagnoses an illness did not cause the illness.
That elementary point appears to have escaped some commentators.
There is also the matter of government priorities.
Governor Otti did not inherit only pension arrears.
He inherited deficits in roads, schools, hospitals, sanitation, urban infrastructure, public institutions, salary obligations and confidence in government itself.
If the argument is that all available resources should immediately have been devoted to inherited gratuities, then the same critics must explain which roads should not have been reconstructed, which hospitals should have remained neglected, which schools should have remained dilapidated, which workers should have gone unpaid and which communities should have waited indefinitely for infrastructure.
Government does not have the luxury of solving one problem while pretending the other ninety-nine do not exist.
The test of leadership is allocation.
And allocation means choices.
This is precisely why describing Otti as compassionate is defensible.
Compassion in government is not theatrical crying.
It is not visiting pensioners with television cameras.
It is designing a mechanism that ensures the oldest liabilities begin to move, current pension payments become more regular, records are cleaned up, liabilities are captured in the budget and future administrations cannot casually pretend that retirees do not exist.
That is institutional compassion.
Ebere Uzoukwa’s supposed offence is that he articulated this point.
Apparently, if one does not join the chorus that everything in Abia is corruption, one must be “deodorising” government.
That is intellectually lazy.
A media aide is expected to explain government policy.
What matters is whether his explanation is supported by facts.
In this case, the broad factual framework supports him.
Abia inherited enormous pension and gratuity obligations.
A substantial proportion predates Governor Otti.
The administration has made significant pension interventions.
It has verified old gratuity liabilities.
It has begun paying the oldest categories.
It has created a medium-term repayment framework.
It has moved pension administration into a more structured fiscal system.
And it is simultaneously funding infrastructure and public services.
One may demand faster progress.
But one cannot honestly translate all of that into “nothing has been done.”
Even the allegation of corruption is remarkably thin.
Corruption is a serious accusation.
Where is the contract?
Where is the diverted pension fund?
Where is the inflated payment?
Where is the unauthorised transfer?
Where is the beneficiary company?
Where is the forensic audit showing theft?
Where is the bank trail?
Where is the procurement violation?
Where is the evidence that pension money was appropriated and then stolen?
Instead, the argument appears to be:
Pensioners are still owed money.
Therefore government has money.
Therefore somebody is corrupt.
That is not evidence.
It is mood.
And mood is not an accounting standard.
The phrase “whispers of corruption” is therefore rather convenient.
When evidence is unavailable, apparently one can simply whisper.
But Abia deserves a higher standard of public debate.
Criticism should interrogate measurable outcomes.
How much was inherited?
How much has been verified?
How much has been paid?
How many beneficiaries have received payment?
What amount remains?
What is the annual budget provision?
What proportion of state revenue can sustainably be devoted to the obligation?
Those are serious questions.
And they are precisely the questions Ebere Uzoukwa’s explanation attempts to address.
There is another delicious contradiction in the attack.
The article effectively acknowledges decades of accumulated liabilities and then berates the administration that is documenting and paying them as though it manufactured the entire historical problem.
This is rather like inheriting a house whose roof has leaked for twenty years, beginning repairs, and being accused of causing the rain.
More remarkably, the writer appears offended that government is planning repayment instead of engaging in fiscal drama.
Perhaps the preferred policy is to summon all pensioners to Umuahia, place ₦61.8 billion on a football field and distribute cash before lunchtime.
Unfortunately, governments that intend to remain solvent do not operate that way.
The attempt to mock Ebere Uzoukwa ultimately backfires because his central proposition is remarkably modest.
He says Otti has accepted responsibility for an inherited problem rather than pretending it does not exist.
That is demonstrably true.
He says the government has commenced a structured response.
That is demonstrably true.
He describes this as evidence of compassion and responsible leadership.
That is an interpretation, but it is hardly an irrational one.
A retiree whose entitlement has been outstanding since 2001 has waited through multiple governments.
If an administration finally identifies that person, verifies the entitlement, creates a payment schedule and begins paying the oldest liabilities, calling that act compassionate is not propaganda.
It is ordinary English.
And if paying someone after twenty years cannot qualify for the adjective “compassionate,” then perhaps English itself should apply for gratuity.
Criticise Otti.
Interrogate every naira.
Demand publication of quarterly pension and gratuity payment schedules.
Ask for beneficiary numbers.
Demand faster settlement wherever fiscal space permits.
That is legitimate opposition.
But declaring that a government which inherited billions in retirement liabilities, paid substantial pension arrears, verified the gratuity stock, started payments and placed the balance inside a multi-year fiscal framework has somehow demonstrated “corruption” requires considerably more than rhetorical fireworks.
And before accusing Dr Ebere Uzoukwa of performing a “perfunctory job,” perhaps the elementary job should come first:
Understand the liabilities. Separate pension from gratuity. Separate accrual from arrears. Separate state revenue from gross public-sector inflows. Separate criticism from evidence.
Then check the numbers.
The ledger is considerably less excitable than politics.
