Background

Let me begin by drawing your attention that this is Part 3 of my piece aimed at enlightening my readers on Dr. Pantami’s statement, ‘that as a serving Minister, Dr. Pantami’s salaries and allowances fall below his earnings as a Professor at the International University Madinah Saudi Arabia.” In Part 1, I debunked the mischievous claims of one Sheriff Almuhajir who purported that the Minister was not a professor in Saudi Arabia and that his salary was a standard amount known to all which cannot be increased for anyone. In Part 2, I presented the economic perspective of why the Naira, and by extension, any supposed huge earnings in Naira have low value owing to the continuous devaluation of the Naira against the US dollar.

Here, I will respond to Prof. Yusuf Dankofa’s rhetoric reproduced below which were widely shared on social media platforms.

(1) “Which university places a professor on a N20 M or more yearly housing allowance or first-class international travels.”

Let me start with a disclaimer that I have no idea how much is the actual yearly housing allowance for a Minister. For the sake of discussion, let us assume that N 20 million is the annual housing allowance of a Minister. Many people who leave outside Saudi Arabia have a poor understanding of how things work in the country. In fact, even those who live inside the Kingdom, sometimes misunderstand how things actually work depending on how much they interact with other people from the same or different parts of the country. At first glance, N20 million appears to be a huge sum of money for a Nigerian. One of the options for faculty housing in Saudi Arabia is hiring hotel suites where the university does not have a built faculty housing. 5-star hotels are sometimes used for this purpose. Yes, you heard me right, 5-star hotels. An average rate of a 5-star hotel here is about SR1,500 (N186,000) per night which adds up to SR540,000 (N66,960,000) per annum. Note that this is a conservative estimate that may apply to just one room, what about a suite for a family? If you think that this is too much for a faculty, then do you know that:

(a) A 5-star Ritz-Carlton Hotel was used in 2018 as an interrogation center in a crackdown on corruption in which about 381 high profile figures where detained on graft allegations? Just imagine the suspended EFCC boss, Ibrahim Magu, and other suspected high profile figures are detained at Transcorp Hilton Hotel Abuja for interrogation.

(b) Saudi Arabia isolates her COVID-19 patients in 5-star hotels across the country except those who opt to isolate at home. Currently, it has 223,327 total cases out of which 60,131 are active and receiving attention. I am a living witness to this fact because even yesterday a new COVID-19 patient was given the option to either isolate at a 5-star hotel or home. The government provides not just free accommodation to the patients but free 3 square meals.

About the second segment of (1), i.e., using first-class international travels, this does not form part of either a salary or allowance of the Minister according to my understanding. For the records, I choose to reproduce below, a portion of the statement issued by Dr. Isa Ali Pantami’s spokesperson Uwa Suleiman in this regard.

“It is worthy of note that as a serving Minister, Dr. Pantami’s salaries and allowances fall below his earnings as a Professor at the International University Madinah Saudi Arabia, where he still holds the record of being the first Nigerian to lecture at that level. He only returned to Nigeria out of the zeal to contribute his quota to national development.”

“Dr Pantami is one of the few Nigerians who are driven by nothing, but an unequalled sense of patriotism and selfless service as demonstrated in his act of sacrifice, to answer the call to serve his country as a sign of his patriotism and selfless service.”

Let us examine the veracity of the statement further. Does a Minister fly first-class? The answer is no. In April 2016 and December 2019, President Muhammadu Buhari has banned Ministers, Heads of Agencies and others from flying first-class.

(2) “And which university gives a professor Jeeps as official vehicles together with pilot cars.”

This does not form part of either a salary or allowance of the Minister. Nevertheless, let us examine the use of Jeeps or SUVs in Saudi Arabia. Please note that SUVs do not have the same prestige and grandeur as they do in Nigeria. They are like ‘Jamfa a Jos’, meaning, they are so common and affordable for all irrespective of one’s status or class. About a month ago, we bought a watermelon from a roadside parked vendors who sell them in their cars. Guess which car they were using to house the watermelons? It was an excellent SUV fitted with car TV LCDs – similar to any SUV belonging to any of the top-notches in Nigeria. One of our housing security guards cruises similar SUV that our former Rector/President (Vice-Chancellor) was using. Here, it is perfectly normal to find a primary school teacher cruising an SUV that our Ministers and Governors are using. They are also used for taxis.

(3) “And which university gives you hundreds of millions as severance fee when you leave for good. Which university in this whole world does that???”

First, I don’t know how much is the severance gratuity of a Minister, hence, I cannot say with certainty that it runs into hundreds of millions. However, let us assume that this is correct. Severance gratuity is similar to what is called End of Service Benefits (ESB) in Saudi Arabia which can accumulate into more than a million Saudi Riyals a few years back depending on one’s years of service. ESB was later reviewed downward. I know someone, a Nigerian, who got more than a million Saudi Riyals as ESB, that will definitely be more than a hundred million Naira.

(4) “People should learn how to keep quiet if they have nothing to say!”

From the foregoing analyses, I would say that even if you have anything to say, then, ponder upon it a thousand times before spitting it out.