Nigeria Content Online

Nigeria’s National
Pledge, one of those interesting macro speech acts in which the Patria
plays with the intelligence of the citizen by presenting a command(ment) as
if it were the voice of the citizen making a commitment, requires
Nigerians “to serve Nigeria with all (their) strength.” From the way
government and its agencies treat pensioners who had in their working
lives been subjects of this national oath, it would seem as if serving
the country has become a crime. Judging from the narratives of woes
that pensioners recount concerning how they are being tossed around by
government agencies responsible for the payment of their entitlements,
one can clearly glean an attitude of extreme callousness and
heartlessness being presented to these ex-civil servants as the reward
for their years of service.

These elderly
individuals are made to travel long distances to attend fruitless
verification exercises. Given the risky nature of Nigerian roads, it is
only predictable that some of them breathe their lasts on the way to or
from where they have gone in pursuit of their monies. Some slump and
die while waiting to be attended to at offices where their fellow
Nigerians sit on their files and their monies.

Or, has it not
almost become common that many of these pensioners turn to beggars
either to be able to travel back home after failing to get positive
answers to their requests, or have taken to regular begging as their
post-retirement employment, in a country where rebranded politicians
earn and spend millions monthly?

Other Nigerians who
are still in the service of the government have learned to look towards
their days of retirement as the most dreaded days of their nunc
dimitis. Little wonder that many indeed die shortly after their
retirement, being unable to face the agony of travelling up and down to
pursue their entitlements. Some others try as much as they can to steal
enough money from government to cater for their retirement. Gofment
work no be chop make I chop?

And what happens if you no chop belefull before dem ring bell talk say e don do?

To retire from
government service no longer means to go for a deserved and highly
desired rest. It rather seems to mean the beginning of another struggle
for survival, a very punishing type since many of these retired
individuals are actually tired of Nigeria’s wahala. But are they not
forced by the difficult pension life in Nigeria to present themselves
again as “retired but not tired,” framing their lives as the rhyme of
endless suffering, a kind of “work, work till you drop”?

Many of them who
are able to secure contract employments after retirement from
government service are thrown back into the pool of suffering that
defines civil service life in Nigeria.

Some of these
elderly individuals have ended up being consumed in accidents on
Nigerian roads as they shuttle between home and their new service
locations. In a very frightening sense, dying on the road as they
search for means of survival after retirement seems to suggest the
fatality of one’s journey to a Nigerian life, a life that is a road
bedeviled by risks, and Nigerians, it seems, can never “retire” from it
except through death! I dare not think of the curses that could
possibly be coming out of the lips of the elderly Nigerians as they
drop dead while looking for means of post-retirement survival.

To think
of those curses is to invite masked spirits to start chasing me in my
dreams! Death, as the only retirement from Nigerian life, of course,
provides another opportunity for the government to extend the
punishment to the next-of-kin of the deceased retiree who would come
forward brandishing a death certificate to claim an entitlement. Hello!
Did you say “entitlement”? Does that fellow making a noise out there
not know what he or she is entitled to? Please, tell that fellow that a
next-of-kin is entitled to what his or her dead relative is entitled
to! Make dem come tomorrow. Over! Is one therefore surprised that some
people in government service see what retired workers are passing
through and conclude that it is not worth it being “faithful and
honest” or serving Nigeria “with all (your) strength,” that it is better
to serve oneself first with all of one’s strength?

A dangerous and
unpatriotic orientation, one would say. But it is indeed what the
system has established as the “right” orientation and those who fail to
recognize and follow it are characterized as not just the mugus in the
system, but also the obstacles that others have to watch and deal with.

It is important for
those in government service, and indeed all Nigerian workers, to take
the issue of planning for retirement very seriously and not wait till the last few years of their service before they start thinking of
what to do with themselves after retirement. Such planning, to put it
bluntly, should not be synonymous with scheming to steal from a system
that “steals” from its subjects.

A government that treats the affairs of its retired workers with
indifference confesses that it is grossly irresponsible and
mischievous. The Nigerian government needs to view the case of
pensioners in the country as a crisis situation and take urgent
measures to rectify it. The chaotic arrangement that currently exists
in the transfers and updating of workers’ pension accounts by the
Pension Commission (PENCOM) and Pension Administrators (PFAs) is
terribly frustrating for workers and has further intensified the
tradition of inflicting additional but undeserved punishment on those
who have served “Nigeria with all (their) strength.”