In Nigeria, times are hard, no doubt, and the citizens are feeling it right in their bones. Whether it is about ever-rising food prices, high energy costs, rising housing rents, poor healthcare system, or frightening insecurity, the story is the same and the verdict is unimpeachable – living is a burden here.
Though most Nigerians are victims of the country’s hash economic realities made worse by the arrogance of the political leadership, there are those who are deeper into the mess. These are the low-level civil service pensioners who spent their youthful time and energy working for government.
For this class of Nigerians, life and living are not just a burden, but also a risk, which explain why many of them, unable to continue with the risk that life has become for them, give up the fight and take the ultimate, undeserved rest for good. In stark terms, such unfortunate people simply die off.
Nothing could be more absurd than the hard fact that some pensioners today receive N2,000; N3,000, N3,500, N4,000 and N7,000 monthly in a country where even the N30,000 minimum wage does not take care of the monthly expenses
The story of pensioners and the payment of their monthly salaries in Nigeria is always a lurid image captured on a rough and jaundiced canvas. Pensioners are paid in arrears, not paid at all, or paid early enough. But the more worrisome dimension is that even the pay is next to nothing given the reality of our times.
Though most pensioners that served their state governments have no cheering experience(s) to share, those of them in Kwara State seem to be worse off with their unbelievable monthly payments that portray their government and its officials as a bunch of insensitive people, without human feelings.
Nothing could be more absurd than the hard fact that some pensioners today receive N2,000; N3,000, N3,500, N4,000 and N7,000 monthly in a country where even the N30,000 minimum wage does not take care of the monthly expenses of an average worker.
But incidentally, that is the sorry tale and dismal fate of a large percentage of pensioners in Kwara State, who mainly retired on grade levels one and eight. They are still being paid between N2,000 and N7,000 as monthly salary by the government.
Many of them are said to have died over lack of funds to meet their basic needs, especially medicare, while those still fortunate to be alive depend on the goodwill of the management of some micro finance banks in Ilorin, until the banks ran out of patience over the inability of the retirees to pay back loans.
For us, this sounds like a fairy tale as it is pretty difficult to come to terms with that reality. Agreed that many of the pensioners presumably depend on their children and the goodwill of friends; the question that readily comes to mind is: ‘how many of them are this lucky?’
It is not impossible to discover that a good number of these retirees do not have children that are well off enough to take care of their own families and other families. And to this extent they are not well placed to support their parents. Moreover, many pensioners have children that are still in school or out of school, but lack jobs.
Those of them in these extreme situations are the ones that die from hunger and starvation. Some of them, out of frustration and regret for serving a country that does not care about them as is the case in other countries of the world, answer the supreme call before it is their time.
These are desperate moments for every Nigerian but the Kwara State pensioners have and prick our hearts. They need the special attention of the state government so that they can continue to live without regret.
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We are, therefore, joining ranks with Saidu Oladimeji, the chairman of Nigeria Union of Pensioners (NUP) in Kwara State, to solicit support for these pensioners by way of increasing their monthly stipend.
According to Oladimeji, pensioners in this state are practically living like destitutes, and we do know that some destitute often meet benevolent Nigerians who give them money, even more than the salary of an average pensioner in this state.
“We were living on loans and borrowings when we were using micro finance banks, but not any more. Pensioners in the category who earn N2,500; N3,500; and N4,000 monthly, were thus able to survive because the managers of those micro-finance banks, out of divine sympathy, decided to assist them, and not because of profit,” he recalled.
This is stranger than fiction and the pensioners’ ability to survive on N4,000 per month, whatever the assistance from the banks, is a good case study on financial management even as it underscores man’s capacity for suffering.
The national minimum wage in Nigeria today is N30,000. We are aware that most states are not finding it easy with the drop in revenue allocation from the Federal Government. We cannot therefore, in all morality, ask the Kwara State government to pay these pensioners the minimum wage.
But something needs to be done. This also is the position of NUP in the state. “We have been on the problem of increasing retirees’ pension since April 2015. We know that the state government cannot give us N30,000 minimum wage because even the Federal Government does not pay its pensioners N30,000. But we look forward for an assistance to improve the amount,” Oladimeji said.
And we cannot agree more. Let there be a shift from the present position. To do that, in our view, is to give life and living some meaning for these pensioners. Time for action, we plead, is today. And let it be noted here that the worth of a society can easily be measured by the way its most vulnerable citizens are treated.
