AN ailment that has cure but keeps thriving because of its curative negligence is as good as encouraging it to continue.
This was one of the submissions of some retirees taken on recently to comment on the issue of delayed payment of gratuities and monthly stipends, endless screenings, ghost workers cankerworm, certificate forgery in civil service and age falsification among some daring workers in some states of the federation.
They were all of the opinion that if payment of gratuity as done in the past is brought back, a system that enabled workers to get their gratuities few months after retirement before they start receiving their pensions, that workers knowing that the more they stay in service the more delayed payment of their gratuity will last, will not have the need to start falsifying their age in order to stay long in service because they would want to get it while still agile and a bit strong to enable them put such money into more fruitful ventures and enjoy the fruit of their labour when they still matter. Those who know that the higher the certificates presented the more the need for them to defend them in order to justify their authenticity and genuine ownership through thorough drilling during interviews for promotion, will be less prone and disposed to certificate forgery because they know they will be need to defend them at the point of need before some experienced professionals in the course of their studies who might be sitting at the panel.
Elder, Senior Citizen (SC) Daniel Ohanugo, a retired state civil servant said if the needful is done, what is expected of the state or federal government on retirees is done at the right time by paying them their gratuities few months after their retirement as was done in the past before a particular President in the country reversed the trend to prolonged stay before payment, that many of them will like to enter the civil service with the right age and retire still agile rather than reduce their age to enable them prolong their stay in service and when eventually paid their gratuity, might be not too strong to enjoy it, that is, if they did not die before they are paid.
Elder Ohanugo speaking at his Asaba residence, said his younger cousin who retired some five years ago was yet to get his gratuity and start receiving his pension when he died. He said if had used his actual age and his gratuity paid on time, he would have lived to enjoy it.
‘Such gratuity would have been enough to do one tangible thing for the family, and even complete his building,’ regretting that all what his younger cousin suffered for by serving the state meritoriously went down the drain, ‘one, on account of age falsification, and two, delay by the state government in paying his gratuity. If he had retired at the right age he would have lived up till the time his gratuity would have been eventually paid, and starts receiving his monthly pension.’ Ohanugo said.
‘The building he was putting up was yet to be completed when he died waiting for his gratuity to complete it, while his three children he trained in the university are yet to find their feet as newly employed workers in the private sector. If he was paid his gratuity and not subjected to these long infuriating delays, and he used his real age to join the civil service, we all believed he would have been able to do something tangible out of it. Now, several years after retirement, coupled with the actual age reflecting all over him as a very old man that cheated by reducing it with more than 10 years, he could no longer lived to get his entitlements, thus, making him not to reap the fruit of his labour through the services he rendered to his father land as a civil servant.’
For Mrs. Veronica Onyetema, a retired headmistress, she never wanted to bribe before getting what was supposed to be her right and entitlement for she toiled and laboured for it. When it became so obvious that she was not going to get her gratuity paid to her on time unless she bribed those in charge, she had to bribe with N200, 000 before the payment they said will take up to five years before she starts dreaming of being paid, was released just under eight (8)months she retired.
Monthly pension payment (MPP) are lengthily delayed like their gratuities to the extent that pensioners also known as Senior Citizens whose children are yet to find their feet, are meant to borrow money to feed, buy drugs and meet other necessities of live when they are supposed to paid as and when due, pampered and taken adequate care of by governments aside what they receive as their entitlements as done in most advanced countries of the world.
Elder Anthony Ihiaba, a Senior Citizen (SC), lamenting on the delayed pension which is supposed to be paid before the end of every new month, and years pensioners have to wait before their gratuity is paid to them, says it has become a game of endurance and luck on the part of pensioners.
According to him, ‘if you are able to endure as a pensioner, and you are lucky to live long, you can now talk of getting your gratuity and start receiving your monthly pension which hardly follow the monthly arrangement in some quarters; but what about many of them who are not lucky enough? What happens to their packages? We have cases when children of deceased pensioners who cannot access their parents’ gratuities and pension spend money they that are alive would have kept to themselves for their own upkeep, but end up spending it as bribes to those in charge in order to get their parents entitlements paid to them. Some unlucky ones after spending fortunes in bribery them end up getting nothing in the end; what a frustrating life most so-called senior citizens in this country are subjected to, and unfortunately find ourselves’ Elder Anthony Ihiaba asked with serious lamentation.
Decrying the harrowing condition pensioners, who are supposed to be relaxing after years of meritorious service to their father land, face in the country, SC Henry Mefordu, says that the new pension scheme ensures that everyone who has worked receives his/her retirement benefits as and when due-but asks ‘what is happening now?’ He complains even when they are now in the month of May, April pension has not been paid, forgetting that most pensioners need money to buy drugs, feed and meet up other demands.
Another agitated pensioner who hails from one of the eastern states but residing with one of his children in Asaba, Pa SC Odo Mgbamena, retired some seven years back in his home state, says the new rate of N32, 000 has not been paid by the Directorate in charge, the Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate ES PTAD, stating how and with what do we express our gratitude to God who made it possible for us to retire hale and hearty but are being frustrated by some wicked souls he created He ought to have by now be subjected to serious hardship and gnashing of their teeth like they are doing to them, pensioners.’
Some of the elder statesmen said pensioners that ought to be resting is never allowed to rest as they are made to face series of unnecessary screenings where some of them meet their death, with some slumping out of exhaustion where death tries to be kind by not visiting them immediately.
They suffer untold hardship during such screening exercise which inner sources from some of the pension offices across the federation say is another arrangee method by some of the officials to be siphoning money, claiming that millions of naira was spent for the exercise. All these, point to absolute corruption that have now gained much ground in the country with those that are supposed to intercede being at the topmost minaret of corruption themselves which destroys the moral fiber of the society.
‘It bothers me to no end seeing these pensioners most of whom are sick, still being asked to go for screening when they are supposed to be resting. They go to these aimless screenings with some ending up their lives at the screening ground,’ laments SC Clement Edukugho. Continuing, he says: ‘they who call for such screening are worse off with their age and certificate falsifications, ghost workers and fake pensioners’ planters who they all (pension officials) allegedly connived to harvest(receive) the pensions and gratuities of these non-existing pensioners. They, again, gain through organizing such unnecessary screenings, gain by frustrating children of deceased pensioners who they subject to endless visits to pension offices and get tired in the process and the gratuity so much pursued left for them (pension officials) out of suffocating frustration to share in their usual kill and divide method.
All of the pensioners who spoke on the issue of delayed payment of gratuities, their stipends on pension, endless unnecessary screening of pensioners most of who are close to their graves, the queues they are made to fall into, long standing and other rigorous punishments they are made to face, show that most of our leaders have no human face and are insensitive to pensioners’ plight. Pensioners are more concerned now with falling back to the old method of gratuity and pension payment where it was said, one is paid immediately on retirement and made to go with the money so paid for the pursuant of other endeavours while they start receiving their monthly pensions as soon as they retired.
A retiree of seven years running now, Pa SC Felix Arumolekan, a neighbor of this reporter at Okokomaiko, living on the same street in Lagos, and from Ikole-Ekiti in Ekiti State, says in a telephone interview ‘I challenge that worker, that leader, that politician who is neck deep in punishing retirees, eating gratuities of some deceased pensioners, denying children access to their parents’ gratuities through frustration in getting them paid, I challenge all of them that think that one day they will not retire and be like those retirees they subject to all manners of tear-inducing treatments, to come out and tell me they will never suffer the same fate. It’s just a question of time.’ Pa SC Felix Arumolekan screamed.
Ezeji Bernard in one of his posts on behalf of him and other fellow citizens, called on God to give them the grace to wait, make and open doors for their colleagues who are sick and provide for them, touch those who are concerned to release their payment without further delay. He called on God to do this for the sake of senior citizens who have suffered because of lack of money.
Emotion laden, isn’t?
Retirement is tied to many challenges just like old age that is her twin sister, because most retirements border on ageing.
Our staffers at the various pension offices, our political leaders, and other stake-holders at the pension board and private sector pension office handlers or practitioners should not feign ignorance that retirement is full of challenges such as declining social standing, loss of regular monthly income, weakened physical state due to ageing process, and worsening health due to chronic medical conditions and anxieties about moving into their own residential houses whether going to be tenable or untenable before or after their retirement.
Compounding these problems for pensioners amid other challenges, amount to ungodly act and wicked consideration on the retired senior citizens.
‘It is unimaginable, uncalled for, and humiliating on the part of these retirees who suffer all of these untold hardships. Whoever it is that suggested this wicked system of settling retirees who become automatically pensioners, should be asked, if he/her is still living, to have it reversed. It was a wrong calculation for the right people. Any one that is able to work and retire cannot be classed so easily among the bad elements in the society. So, it is wrong to see they are the ones suffering this great deal of wrong calculation probably forced on the working citizen at retirement for the initiator’s selfish end.’ Ezinne Mrs. Ugochim Eunice Obiakude, a retired college principal told this reporter at her Okwe residence in Asaba.
In Europe and America the two countries I have been privileged to visit, courtesy of my children who live and work there, pensioners are treated with great care, pampered, made to look like new born children, and well-fortified with food, money and security. At times I begin to think it is as a result of our colour that made us to be this wicked.
At my late husband’s town, Atu, Uturu, Abia State, where the Abia State University is located, there is this pensioner who for a long time been lamenting that half of his gratuity was not paid. Assisted by one of his cousin’s in the pursuit for the remaining unpaid part of the gratuity, he was everyday being asked to come, and when he comes with his cousin, they keep dribbling them until he passed out. When his cousin could no longer face the frustration of going alone and being asked what was his own in the matter, he contacted me; my late husband being close to the late pensioner family-wise. When I went and told them the dangers inherent in what they were doing, trying to hide part of a dead man’s gratuity he was aware he was being owed before he died, one of them asked me: Which one concerns you, an Asaba woman in this matter, even when they know my husband was related to the late pensioner. Owing to series of threats on my life for trying to help out, my children asked me to relocate immediately to Asaba. Today, I still feel for the late man and the widow he left behind with her yet to grow up children then,’ Ezinne Mrs. Ugochim Eunice Obiakude, who lives a very quiet and reserved life style, told this reporter at her Okwe-Asaba residence.
‘One thing that never stopped beating my thoughts is why we Nigerians chose to be living the way we are living, the hard and wicked way of life. Why we have great delight in copying the bad things of life. Do you know one of the reasons why some people hate to leave the civil service even when they are over due to be retired? It is because of the many evil ways devised for making money in the civil service through their many cheating mechanisms. Elder statesman, Pa Mathew Olise asks and explains.
‘Let’s look at the issues emanating from those civil servants that work in various pension offices who will, as a result of the plenty money they are making through bribery, eating of dead pensioners’ unsettled money, and other denials perpetrated on pensioners, would want to remain in office, devising one means or the other to ensure they remain permanently in office even if it means going to the office with the aid of walking stick.
What will make those stealing money by hook or crook dream of leaving office even when they are not attached to the pension’s office but have other links or means of stealing government’s money? You and I know they will always go to any length to find ways of staying put in office to enable them have enough time to gain in whatever way opened to them; talk more of some of those in the pension office who are Lords and Profs in eating what does not belong to them.’ Pa Mathew Olise posited, and continued.
‘These set of workers who have extra means of getting money through dubious means whether at the pension’s office, in the Auditor-General’s Office, Office of the Statistician –General or Aso Rock, you name it, are never willing to leave office, and will do everything criminally possible for them to remain in office; one of such means being age falsification.
‘The worst are some of these workers in pension offices who feast on their fellow workers gratuities and their monthly pensions without recourse to the repercussions that stare at them, for whatever a man sows so shall he reap according to a popular biblical injunction.’
One Tudemei, other names withheld, a retired teacher, would have committed suicide if he was not spotted by a farmer on his way to the farm. He had knotted the rope with a small table he brought that would enable him transit to the land of no return undetected. Just as he was saying his last prayer, the farmer, identified as Ngba-asi Ihieme, had to hide and watched him closely with him, Tudeme, on suicide mission oblivious of his presence.
As he listened to him pray, Ngbaasi Ihieme said he (Tudeme) had asked God his creator to forgive him, that he never meant to take his own life, the life he did not give to himself, but now wish to do that because of series of hardship those boys at the pension board office have subjected him to by not wanting him to get his gratuity before his death. ‘Let them take my pension, let them eat it. My father in heaven, you know it is not my wish to die through suicide, and that I never gave them this gratuity which they have succeeded in denying me through delay method they have devised to frustrate me. Forgive me father, and give my children the fortitude to bear the irreparable loss as I now prepare to come to you, my creator’ Ngbaasi Ihieme, who said Tudeme prayed in both English Language and his native Language, revealed to this itinerant reporter.
Just as he mounted the table and prepares to insert his head into the knotted rope before kicking the table aside for his onward journey to the land of no return, Ngbaasi Ihieme, held him, pleading with him not to carry out his planned evil trip to land of the dead, that whatever that was troubling him in the heart should be left to God Almighty to handle on his behalf. After some reasonable minutes of advice and counseling, he refrained from his action, the suicide mission he wanted to embark on.
His children, wife and the entire family were happy and thanked Ngbaasi Ihieme tremendously who discovered what would have amounted to shameful death their father wanted to embark on because of the short-comings that arose from having his overdue gratuity paid to him.
The gratuity was paid after family members waded into the matter, trying to know what was responsible for the importunate and infuriating delays caused Tudeme in having his gratuity paid him, a highly distinguished and popular teacher in the locality.
That timely intervention saved what have added yet to other calamities reported and un-reported, many pensioners suffer arising from delayed payments of gratuities and their monthly pensions.
The general call for now is for government at the local state and federal levels to revert to old method of settling pensioners who receive their gratuities few months after their retirement, and start receiving their pensions almost immediately, saying it would help reduce the high level of suffering most pensioners in the country face and other anomalies being experienced in the civil service such as age falsification etc.
Also to be relaxed, according to some of the respondents interviewed, is the rate at which most of these frail-looking pensioners are subjected to unnecessary screening which had, most times, resulted to death of some of them or outright slumping, urging all levels of government to ensure that pensioners are made to enjoy and relax till the day they are variously called to eternal rest by their creator.
