Across the world, retirement is a time looked forward to by work­ers. But the same cannot be said of many Nigerian workers. This is largely due to the difficulty retirees go through to get their benefits and monthly pension paid. The travails of retirees like 71-year-old Abu Bakare Ekundayo and 68- year-old
Richard Ogundare exemplify why retirement is rebuffed and abhorred by lots of workers in Nigeria. As a result, many continue to alter their age and even record of service till they drop dead on the job. Both retirees are distressed and appalled at the non-payment of their gra­tuity and pension,10 years after retiring from active public service.
Richard Ogundare served in the Nige­rian Army between1969 and 1979. He was a Lance Corporal at the Armoured Battalion in Nsukka Unit, Enugu State. He was later de­mobilized after 10 years in the military. After the demobilization in 1979, he enrolled and was absorbed into the Nigeria Police Force. There, he served for another 25 years, rising through the ranks to become Assistant Super­intendent of Police (ASP). He retired in 2004 after serving the country cummulatively for 35 years. However, since his retirement, not a dime has been paid him as pension or gra­tuity.
Also, Abu Bakare Ekundayo shares the similar fate. He also served in the Army as a Lance Corporal in the Supply and Transport section, Rukuba Jos Unit. He was demobi­lized into the Nigeria Police Force, where he put in 17 years and retired in 2006 as an In­spector at the Lagos State Police Command, Ikeja.
Ogundare and Ekundayo, after years of service in Nigeria’s security forces have not got their pensions, a development making them to regret serving their fatherland. Both still have marks of injuries they sustained during the civil war and in shoot-outs with criminals on their bodies. Initially, they used to see those scars as a badge of honour, but now it looks to them like a mark of shame. “Each time I recall the number of times I escaped death by the whiskers in the course of serving this country, I weep. Honestly, I regret serving this country. In fact, I’m ashamed to be a Nigerian. How much is this my stipend that they have refused to pay me? Is it up to the amount politicians’ children waste to maintain their luxurious lifestyle? If I die with this bottled-up anger, do you think my spirit would be happy with this country? Right now, I have no reason to be proud of my country, I’m ashamed.” Ogundare de­clares.
“I was receiving salary regularly until I retired in 2006 but I have not received my pension since I retired. I have been suffering and partially blind with no money to eat or go to hospital. I have been living a miserable life. We do not deserve this kind of treatment from the country that we have served. If I show you my back, you’ll see the scars of bullet wounds I sustained in combat during my days in military and police. I still feel the pains. But there is now nothing to show for it because I’m living in penury”, Ekundayo complains.
All their efforts to get their entitlements seem to hit the rock until early this year when the Pension Transitional Arrangement Direc­torate (PTAD), commenced a national veri­fication exercise for all retired service men. When the PTAD team came to Ikeja, Lagos between January and February, the hopes of many of these retirees were raised. PTAD gave them certificates of participation after getting every pensioner’s bio-data. The pen­sioners were also mandated to go to banks nearest to them and open current accounts where their pension and gratuity monies would be paid into. The body also assured the pensioners that after verification, their retire­ment funds would be deposited in no time.
But eight months after that verification, nothing again has been heard from PTAD or even a credit alert from their banks. Hence, their frustration and anger against their fa­therland again. “We are demobilized soldiers who fought war between 1967 and 1970 be­fore we were asked to join the Nigeria Po­lice Force,” Ogundare recalls in anger. “The president at the time was Olusegun Obasanjo. He asked us to join the police because it had few officers, and we obeyed. Later in 2004,
former Inspector General of Police, Sunday Ehindero, asked us to go on voluntary retirement. Again, we obeyed him because we are loyal officers. But some people did not obey that instruction and worked up to 40 years before retiring. The most painful thing for me is that this group of policemen have been paid their pension with some of them receiving eight million naira”, he added.
In a recent report, the PTAD Director General, Neille Mayshak disclosed their discovery that 600 pensioners had never been paid. She described the development as unjust and vowed to ensure the payment of the outstand­ing stipends of those concerned. Saturday Sun gathered that hundreds of police retirees are yet to get pension even after completing the PTAD verification exercise carried out nationwide. And these are mainly soldiers from the Nigerian Army, who got seconded into the Police Force. Many of these pensioners like Ekundayo and Ogundare live in abject poverty. Ogundare told Saturday Sun that one of his colleagues also has the same case as his and his name is Paul Odunwa, an ASP who retired on December 12, 2005 after serving for 35 years but yet to receive his pension 10 years after retirement while he is now seri­ously sick.
Another pensioner, he said, is Afolabi Kosolu, an In­spector who died in penury just a day to the commence­ment of the PTAD verification exercise. “Do we deserve this treatment? We need our retirement benefits so as to take care of our health and other necessities. The dead do not spend money and so we should enjoy the sweat of our labour now that we are still alive. Many of our colleagues that have died without getting a dime of their entitlements would be cursing this country from their graves.”
Ogundare appealed to relevant authorities especially President Muhammadu Buhari to come to their aid. He also called on the National Assembly to look into their matter. “I believe we have a listening president now. Again, being a retired military officer, I’m sure he would understand our pains and grievances. He should please in­tervene and call on whoever is responsible to release our monies because we are suffering.”
Efforts to get the reaction of the Managing Director of PTAD, Ms Nellie Meyshak or any other official through their lines, proved abortive as at press time.
Another retiree, Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Ehiremen Godfery was paid N2.4m out of N5.6m due to him as gratuity. According to him, the balance of N3.2m was moved into his retirement savings account.
With a monthly pension of N38, 600, Ehiremen, like every other retiree, noted that his pension has not been paid four years after he retired from service. “Four years after my retirement till date, my Pension Fund Adminis­tration (PFA) has continued to debit my RSA quarterly so as to convert part of my balance instead of crediting my RSA with interest.”
Even after making a formal complaint to the appropri­ate quarters, the retired police officer said that no explana­tion has so far been given to him. He referred to a more recent case where an ASP from Enugu who was paid the N1.5m out of his total gratuity of N6.2m with N4.7m going into his retirement saving account. When he com­plained, the ASP, who needed money to start a new life, was advised to take what he was paid.
Ehiremen, who is the voice for the federal pensioners from the South-East, has therefore appealed to President Muhammadu Buhari to look into the Pension Reform Act (PRA) and retiree gratuities trapped in what he described as questionable retirement savings account. “Retirees are scientifically short paid and defrauded of pension and gra­tuity by government policies and their operators. There are lacunas for leakages in their system of payment,” he said.
DSP Ehiremen alleged: “They invested each retiree’s gratuity running into billions of naira through which they are amassing wealth for themselves and reaping the re­ward of retirees’ labour for 35 years in service.”
Questioning the rationale of the retirement savings ac­count, he noted that gratuity was not meant for a next of kin but the retiree who had survived 35 years of service to start a new life.
He called for a kindhearted action from the govern­ment to, “ save the lives of PRA retirees from this deliber­ate, undemocratic trick to promote obtaining under false pretence by PENCOM and PFAs allegedly owned by poli­ticians associated with the immediate past government.”