PENSIONERS’ POVERTY AS LESSON TO THE YOUTHS

PENSIONERS’ POVERTY AS LESSON TO THE YOUTHS published in The Guardian Newspaper of Monday, 26 July 2010 23:00 By Luke Onyekakeyah Opinion - Columnists.

WHEN the ancient Hebrew King Solomon stated that the aggressive shall be rich while the poor is feeble (Proverbs 10.4), he probably foresaw the poverty, agony and distress that retired civil servants in Nigeria would be subjected to after spending their lives and talents working for a system that doesn’t care about their welfare. King Solomon was sounding a note of warning to humanity that the only way to be rich is to be diligent, working with the hands along the path of personal vision. Getting a job is good in a system that cares for the citizenry. Though, one won’t be rich in such system, but the person won’t suffer at old age after retirement.

It is common knowledge that the richest people on earth are not salary earners or civil servants as it were. The richest people are those who have personal vision of what to do with their own hands. When the vision is put into action, the result is wealth. Forget about the corruption and greed in Nigeria whereby people who didn’t do any work simply become rich overnight by stealing and cornering what belongs to all to themselves. To such people who got their wealth through dubious means, King Solomon has a word for them. He reminds them that, “Wealth gotten by vanity shall be diminished; but he that gathereth by labour shall increase”, (Proverbs 13:11).

The wealth of dubious, corrupt, scammers, thieves, robbers, kidnappers, pen robbers, forgers, etc, shall be diminished. Their wealth shall never succeed them into the next generation. Their ill-gotten wealth shall end up with them. That is the eternal truth whether they like it or not. It applies whether or not they know about it. It doesn’t matter if one doesn’t believe or acknowledge it. The only solution to avert the disaster associated with ill-gotten wealth is restitution. Those who have stolen from the system must restore what they have stolen as the only way to be free from the eternal wrath of God.

Now back to our distressed pensioners, you may then ask, does it mean that the pensioners weren’t diligent? Were their hands slacked? Could that be the reason why they’re poor today? The answer to all this is simply yes. If it is true that under normal circumstances, salary earners are not known to be rich, then, it means that a decision to remain a salary earner, working to realise someone else’s vision or a system that doesn’t care for your welfare at old age is a decision to be poor.

In Nigeria, it is common knowledge that people working in public establishments, namely ministries, departments and agencies (MDA), are among the laziest workers in the system. They don’t think about how to improve the system. And, as if the system recognised that, they’re being punished for their lack of wisdom. Their not being diligent explains why they couldn’t realise early enough in their lives that one day they would retire and leave the system and what becomes of their lives thereafter never crossed their minds. They’re the people suffering today at a time they should be reaping the fruit of their labour.

Unfortunately, the system they worked for is corrupt and didn’t provide for them. It is not that they didn’t make savings through the extant pension scheme at the time. Apparently, that money has been stolen by their corrupt successors who have become “wiser” by falsely believing that the only way they could safeguard and guarantee a comfortable old age is by stealing from the system.

After stealing the funds, their corrupt successors are the ones asking them every now and then to come for endless verification even if they’re bedridden. At the end, most of the pensioners won’t get anything. Many will die in penury. But the consequences of a diminished wealth await whatever wealth those corrupt officials have gathered by vanity. As a matter of fact, their situation after retirement would be worse because their generations would suffer the consequences. God visits the sins of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations… (Exodus 20:5).

Since April or so, both the federal and state governments once again embarked on a fruitless identity verification exercise for the over 160,000 pensioners throughout the federation. Most of the pensioners are owed pension stipend for upwards of six months. One Nigerian Postal Service (NIPOST) retiree reportedly died at the General Post Office, Ikeja in Lagos while protesting for his unpaid 49-month pension arrears and another three deaths were recorded in Lagos. Reports abound of other deaths of the old and feeble men and women who are regularly forced to travel long distances to Abuja or the state capitals to be verified before they could be paid their legally deserved pension.

Each time the pensioners are assembled, there aren’t adequate preparations made to attend to them in a smart and civilized manner. The verification exercise is an experience in anarchy for the poor and weak old folks. They’re dehumanised and clearly abused by the system they served. At the end only a few would manage to get probably one or two months out of the many months of arrears owed them. The rest get nothing. Thereafter, the arrears will begin to accumulate. When the greedy corrupt officials observe that the money, which probably they lodged into their private accounts to yield interest, has become huge enough, they would initiate another verification exercise designed to kill many of the pensioners so that their entitlements would end up in private pockets. That is the vicious cycle of corrupt enrichment that has been entrenched in the government pension scheme.

It is pertinent to ask why it is necessary for the frail looking men and women to be regularly invited for verification? Is there no database of the pensioners at their various places of work? Is there no other way of monitoring those that are living or dead? Why can’t the exercise be done at the ward level considering the age of the people? Why is it so difficult to organise the payment of simple pension if it is not to defraud the system? For how long will this continue and people are subjected to untold pain and suffering?

Like I said above, the youths should learn from the bastardisation of the system and learn their lessons. The situation is made worse and unpredictable now with the high rate of unemployment. There is need to shift the paradigm as regards employment. Since the system is not yet prepared to cater for the citizenry, particularly the aged, there is need to de-emphasise paid employment and instead give thrust to enterprise development at personal level.

The National Directorate for Employment (NDE) is not doing the whole job it is supposed to do. I have said it before that training people to acquire skills only without doing anything to assist them set up personal businesses is an effort in futility. There should be an enterprise development fund from which prospective youths are assisted financially to set up businesses. If one million youths are assisted in one year and each in turn employs two persons that will be three million jobs in one year. If that is consistently done for five years, that will be 15 million jobs. That will make unemployment history in this society.

The shabby way the pensioners are treated should be an eye-opener to the youths, especially, those that have graduated from the universities and are busy traversing the cities looking for non-existent jobs instead of sitting down to decide what to do with their lives. The Nigerian system has not changed. The bush fowl, in an Igbo adage, told the chicken to watch the way it is dissected that is the way she too will be dissected. This is a warning to those youths who have ears to hear.

Author of this article: By Luke Onyekakeyah