EKE O. AKO, THE TAGGING MARATHON AND THE FACTS ABOUT ABIA GRATUITIES
Before getting to the figures, one has to admire the sheer ambition of Eke O. Ako’s distribution list.
In one Facebook post, he summoned Punch Newspapers, Channels Television, the World Bank, UNESCO, Peter Obi, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the UK, Amnesty International, the European Union, Sahara Reporters, Arise News, Linda Ikeji — and, for good measure, Basketmouth and P-Square.
At that point, one begins to wonder whether the gratuity matter was headed for the Accountant-General’s office or the United Nations General Assembly.
The tagging was equally energetic. Practically everyone who could possibly be summoned into the conversation appeared to have received an invitation.
Comic relief aside, however, retirees’ entitlements are serious matters, and the figures being circulated deserve to be checked against the most recent publicly available records.
WHAT THE CURRENT RECORDS ACTUALLY SAY
Eke O. Ako’s central argument is built around a figure of ₦3.757 billion for 3,305 retirees between 2001 and 2010.
But the latest publicly reported figures following the Abia State Government’s verification exercise are materially different.
On 25 August 2026, The Guardian reported that the government placed the total verified outstanding gratuity liability at ₦61.8 billion, covering state and local-government retirees between 2001 and 2025.
For the 2001–2010 period alone, the verified outstanding figure was reported as approximately ₦7.2 billion, not ₦3.76 billion.
That distinction matters.
A table extracted from older Accountant-General reports cannot automatically be treated as the complete present liability after a later verification and reconciliation exercise, particularly when the newer exercise encompasses both state and local-government retirees.
WHAT ABOUT RETIREES WHO HAVE DIED?
The post asks a legitimate question:
What about the dead retirees?
The latest public statement directly addresses it.
Governor Otti stated that the next-of-kin of deceased pensioners would receive the benefits due to their late relatives, with provisions made for such claims.
That significantly affects the arithmetic in the article.
The calculation that assumes 15% of the retirees have died and then simply deducts 15% from the outstanding gratuity liability is not supported by evidence supplied in the post.
Even more importantly, the death of a pensioner does not necessarily extinguish an accrued entitlement. Where the entitlement passes to an eligible estate or next-of-kin, the liability remains.
Therefore, the calculation:
₦3.757 billion × 85% = ₦3.19 billion
cannot automatically be treated as the amount actually owed.
It is an estimate built upon an unsupported mortality assumption.
WHAT ABOUT THOSE WHO RETIRED AFTER MAY 2023?
Here there is an important question worth asking.
The government’s own verification exercise reported approximately ₦10.9 billion in gratuity obligations arising from May 30, 2023 onward.
That means retirees from the current administration’s period are indeed part of the outstanding gratuity picture.
Citizens are therefore entitled to ask:
How quickly will the post-May 2023 obligations be settled?
That is a proper accountability question.
But it is different from saying that such retirees do not exist within the government’s gratuity-payment plan.
THE ₦3.2 BILLION ARGUMENT HAS A SERIOUS ARITHMETICAL PROBLEM
The article repeatedly presents approximately ₦3.2 billion as though this represents the gratuity payment being celebrated.
But that figure is derived by:
- Starting with the older ₦3.757 billion figure; and
- Arbitrarily deducting 15% for retirees presumed to have died.
Neither step establishes the government’s present verified liability.
More importantly, the government’s latest published position is that its verified gratuity obligations extend to ₦61.8 billion across 2001–2025.
Therefore, presenting the gratuity intervention simply as “Otti is paying ₦3.2 billion” does not capture the government’s publicly stated gratuity programme.
THE ₦61.8 BILLION FIGURE CANNOT SIMPLY DISAPPEAR
This is perhaps the biggest factual omission in the argument.
The publicly reported reconciliation places the gratuity liability at approximately:
₦61.8 billion
covering verified state and local-government retirees between 2001 and 2025.
The government has stated that the backlog is to be progressively cleared with a target extending to 2031.
Citizens may legitimately debate whether 2031 is too far away.
They may demand faster payments.
They may insist that retirees who served the state should not have to wait several more years.
They may ask government to publish beneficiary numbers, payment tranches and outstanding balances.
Those are legitimate questions.
But that debate should begin with the complete verified liability, not by treating ₦3.757 billion from an older set of records as the entire gratuity challenge confronting Abia State.
WHAT ABOUT TRANSPORTATION AND SECURITY EXPENDITURE?
The post also compares gratuity payments with alleged expenditure of:
₦4.31 billion on transportation
and
₦6.62 billion on security
and then describes both amounts essentially as the governor’s personal transport and personal security expenses.
That conclusion requires more evidence.
Government budget classifications frequently contain expenditure attributable to an entire office, department, institution or set of operations.
A figure appearing under the Governor’s Office does not automatically mean the governor personally consumed that amount.
The appropriate questions are:
Was the figure a budget provision or actual expenditure?
Which sub-head produced it?
What activities were charged to that sub-head?
Was it expenditure for the individual governor, or institutional expenditure administered through the Governor’s Office?
Without that disaggregation, converting an institutional expenditure heading into “Otti spent ₦4.31 billion transporting himself” goes further than the evidence establishes.
THE REVENUE FIGURE ALSO NEEDS CONTEXT
The article further claims that Abia State has received approximately:
₦1.8 trillion under Governor Otti
and therefore calculates gratuity payments as approximately 0.2% of state revenue.
That calculation depends entirely on what has been included in the ₦1.8 trillion figure.
Is it:
- FAAC only?
- FAAC plus IGR?
- Grants?
- Opening balances?
- Capital receipts?
- Loans?
- Total projected revenue?
- Actual realised revenue?
- Multiple fiscal years added together?
These are not interchangeable concepts.
Accordingly, a cumulative ₦1.8 trillion claim requires a clearly stated time period and revenue composition before percentages derived from it can be regarded as established facts.
THERE IS STILL A SERIOUS ACCOUNTABILITY QUESTION
None of this diminishes the rights of pensioners.
Retirees are not receiving charity.
Their gratuities are earned entitlements.
Government should therefore be transparent about:
- how much has actually been paid;
- how many retirees have received payment;
- how many remain outstanding;
- the treatment of deceased beneficiaries;
- the payment timetable for each retirement cohort; and
- how quickly the post-2023 liabilities will be cleared.
Those questions deserve answers.
The government’s announcement that the total verified liability is ₦61.8 billion also creates an obligation for continuous public reporting showing how that liability is being reduced.
BUT ACCOUNTABILITY MUST WORK BOTH WAYS
If government numbers should be interrogated, numbers used to criticise government should equally be interrogated.
The ₦3.19 billion figure depends on an assumed 15% mortality rate.
The claim that deceased retirees have been abandoned conflicts with the governor’s public assurance that qualifying next-of-kin would be paid.
The suggestion that the whole gratuity story concerns approximately ₦3.2 billion overlooks the government’s verified ₦61.8 billion liability.
And describing institutional transportation and security expenditure as automatically constituting the governor’s personal spending requires evidence from the relevant budget sub-heads.
THE SERIOUS QUESTION BENEATH THE NOISE
Strip away the celebrity tagging, newspaper references and dramatic arithmetic, and an important public-policy question remains:
How quickly can Abia clear decades of accumulated gratuity obligations while preventing today’s retirees from becoming another generation of pensioners waiting endlessly for their benefits?
That is the question worth pursuing.
Retirees deserve their money.
Government deserves scrutiny.
And every figure placed before the public deserves scrutiny too.
After inviting Punch, Channels Television, the World Bank, UNESCO, Peter Obi, President Tinubu, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Amnesty International, the European Union, Basketmouth, P-Square and practically half of Facebook into the conversation, perhaps the most important guest Eke O. Ako should invite next is much less glamorous:
THE VERIFIED RECORDS.
Because the latest publicly reported records describe a verified gratuity liability of approximately ₦61.8 billion, not merely the ₦3.2 billion around which his article is constructed.
