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In
my recent commentaries in respect of pension for our past athletes some
of whom were household names worldwide, I noted that some Nigerians
were offended for which I am now obliged to supply more specific
details on why I made such statements.

By way of
background, let it be known that I am one of those athletes that will
benefit from any existing pension schemes because I was employed by the
Kaduna Sports Council from 1979-1980 before leaving for the USA on
academic grounds. I am also part of those athletes abandoned by
existing pension scheme as mentioned by Nnamdi Okosieme in one of his
articles recently based on the fact that I represented Lagos State in
1975 National Schools Cross Country held in Jos as well as Hussey
Shield/Lady Manuwa Competition in Benin City and the National Sports
Festival Kaduna 1977. I also represented both Kaduna and Kano State in
my days and won the 800m at the Zonal (Zone 1) Championship of 1979,
although, these were not international engagements.

Welfare packages

From the National
Sports Commission (NSC) budget of 2009/2010 athletes’ welfare amount
was N10.5 million and N500 million was made available for grassroots
sports development. With this in mind, I acknowledge that there is room
to accommodate pension schemes for all athletes (past and present) in
the future but I believe that to do that requires legislation. Any
budgeted line item must be agreed to by the National Assembly including
re-allocation of already budgeted amounts as amendments because
ministers simply lack the authority to amend or do away with federal
budget. I refer to the reasons for the conviction of Bode George as
recently upheld by Court of Appeal for usurping National Assembly power
on procedural steps on contract awards.

Existing rules

Although, I am not
an authority on Nigerian pension law but I refer to Pension Reform Act
2004 and a National Pension Commission’s (NPC) document dated 5
February 2008 posted at http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/20/11/40104425.pdf.

Literally, the
provisions of the Pension Reform Act 2004 concerns employees of public
and private sectors only and some of its provisions are:

“1.(I) There shall
be established for any employment in the Federal Republic of Nigeria, a
Contributory Pension Scheme (in this Act referred to as “the Scheme”)
for payment of retirement benefits of employees to whom the Scheme
applies ‘under this Act.

(2) Subject to
Section 8 of this Act, the Scheme shall apply to all employees in the
Public Service of the Federation, Federal Capital Territory and the
Private Sector (a) in the case of the Public Sector, who are in
employment; and (h) in the case of the Private Sector, who are in
employment in an organisation, in which there are 5 or more employees.

2. The objectives
of the Scheme shall be to (a) ensure that every person who worked in
either the Public Service of the Federation, Federal Capital Territory
or Private Sector receives his retirement benefits as and when due:

(h) assist improvident individuals by ensuring that they save in order to cater for their livelihood during old age.

Based on this Act,
it is my position that the Promised Land for the affected athletes
rests with the legislature that established pension laws. With
elections approaching the time is ripe to put pressure on these leaders
as the election is around the corner.

Turning the page
over, we can see that some of the athletes mentioned in the Okosieme
article – Bruce Ijirigho, Charlton Ehizuelen, Felix Imadiyi and others
clearly qualify under the Pension Reform Act by been former employees
who are over 50 years of age. I also believe that they will need
employment lawyers to seek their entitlements.

Going forward

These athletes clearly know what to do and while it is not my intention to advocate any hooliganism or banditry,

I would ask
athletes to think deeply before deciding to represent Nigeria and that
having decided to do so, they should consider their efforts as more of
a voluntary gift to the country and should not think that the country
owes them anything afterwards, in addition to the allowances given to
them during performance.

In comparison with
other countries like USA, Canada and UK, again there is no such thing
as Pension schemes for athletes (past and present). Those who are
employees somewhere (public or private) enjoy such pension as well just
as Pension Reform Act 2004.

Again, what I would
personally like to see is simply that the old ways of employing these
athletes by their respective State Sports Council be re-established and
to do so demands that those athletes make it known publicly to the
respective Governorship candidates or even Presidential candidates.
And, their plan B would be to lobby the National Assembly aspirants.
This is my view and I invite any improvement that will help these
athletes accomplished their goals.

Mr Balogun, a lawyer and former athlete, is based in the United States of America