If Political Officeholders Jack Up Their Pay, Workers, Pensioners Will Demand Living Wages —S/West NUP Spokesman, Abatan

The Public Relations Officer of the Nigeria Union of Pensioners (NUP) in the South West and secretary of the union in Oyo State, Dr Olusegun Abatan, in this interview by SAHEED SALAWU, speaks on the travails of retired workers and active workers in the region and Nigeria as a whole. He also speaks on other related matters affecting the citizenry.

You recently warned that governors who fail to clear pension arrears and gratuities will lose the support of pensioners in 2027. What pushed the union to issue such a strong statement?

It is quite unfortunate that in Nigeria, pensioners have become endangered species. They have become something that you use and then dump. These are people that have contributed immensely to the development of this country, but to the dramatis personae presently, particularly during this Fourth Republic, the pensioners don’t matter, and as such, they do not bother about their welfare.

What has even worsened it is the removal of the first-line charge status of paying pensions from the constitution. That removal gave governors the leeway to do whatever they like. They may pay pensions and gratuities and they may not. That is what gave rise to the non-payment of pensions in some states of the federation. I’m not talking only of the South West. As I speak to you, some states, particularly in the South East, have not paid gratuities of our pensioners in the last 17 years. Some pensioners in some states in the East got their gratuities last in 2008. And it is quite unfortunate that the branches of our union in those states are not tackling the matter as they should. And that has given rise to bad blood from the South East, and that bad blood is creeping into the South West as well. Pensioners were being owed gratuities from 2008 in the South West. It is Governor Seyi Makinde [of Oyo State] that is pushing the thing, paying arrears of gratuities up to about 2014 or 2015 now. And he has opened another window of payment for those that are retiring during his tenure (2019 to date).

But in most states of the federation — let me limit myself, yet, to the South West — you still have some of our pensioners being owed gratuities from year 2013. That’s 12 years ago. If you were to collect one million naira 12 years ago, will that amount buy the same thing you would buy today? No. Yet, these governors don’t care. And that is the reason we have mandated our members — and I want to say it again — that pensioners in the South West should not vote for any governor that is not taking their welfare seriously. They should not vote for any governor or the parties of such governors that are owing them arrears of pensions and gratuities. We are also human beings. And how much is the money? How much are the gratuities? How much are the pensions. Some pensioners are earning N5,000, some, N10,000, but Governor Seyi Makinde said pensioners in Oyo State should not be paid less than N25,000 a month. That means the minimum pension in Oyo State is N25,000. Before the governor came on board, we had pensioners– it’s in my files here — earning N1,000, N350. And some governors are still owing pensioners years of arrears of such pensions. Such governors are wicked.

Pensioners in Nigeria have the population to decide who governs this country. No matter how small a pensioner is, they have about seven or eight people behind them. If a pensioner has four children, plus their spouse, that’s six people. They would have grandchildren, they would have friends, and they would have relations. We will galvanize all our dependants not to vote for those that would make our lives miserable. In fact, Oyo State set that in motion with the election of Governor Makinde in 2019. If Makinde had not come in 2019, I wouldn’t know how many pensioners would have remained on the surface of the earth in the state. Before he came, we were dying like fowls. Many times, pensioners slumped and died on the streets. We were burying people all the time. All our pleas to the powers that be then to do something; to pay our pensions fell on deaf ears. That was the reason we said that any pensioner that would vote for any government or a governor that would make their life miserable should have their head examined.

The Revenue Mobilisation and Fiscal Commission is said to be planning wage increase for political officeholders. What is your take on that?

This is in tandem with what I have said earlier. Politicians in Nigeria are mostly self-seeking and they are for their own selves. They are not there because of the masses, or because of the fact that they want to make life meaningful for the citizenry. This step that they want to take is part of it. The Nigerian Union of Pensioners is not going to kick against it. Let them do it for the politicians. The only thing I want to state vehemently and categorically is that let them do it and let all affiliates of the Nigeria Labour Congress and Trade Union Congress meet in Ibadan or Abuja or Lagos or Port Harcourt and then fashion out what we want from this government as well. Let us fashion out the minimum wage for workers and minimum wage for pensioners. We create wealth and we must enjoy the wealth that we create. It is this wealth that we create that the politicians want to begin to share among themselves. But there is no problem, let them do it. We will also have a congress of all affiliates of the NLC and TUC and then we will decide what we want from this government. It is no longer going to be N70,000 or N250,000. Whatever they give the politicians will form the basis of what we also will determine as our wage increase or pension increase.

Can you give us a clearer picture of the scale of pension arrears across the South West? How many pensioners are affected and what is the estimated financial backlog?

The figure is humongous. I may not be able to give the actual figure, but drawing from what we had in the last two or three months, when we were collating the indebtedness of state governments in the South West to pensioners, it ranged from N30 billion in some states to N35 billion and 38 billion in others. If we take the average of N30 billion, multiply that by the six states of the South West, that is N180 billion of unpaid gratuities. I’m not talking of pensions. And these gratuities date back to 2013 in many of these states, including Osun and Ekiti. It is only of recent that Ogun State started buckling up to pay billions in gratuities to our pensioners. We thank the governor for that. But a lot of money is still being owed in Ondo State. With the amount of money being owed by the Ekiti State government and the rate at which that government is releasing N100 million it will take about a hundred years to pay the arrears of gratuities in the state. How many pensioners will be alive 100 years from now? So, it is like writing the pensioners off in Ekiti State.

Ondo State, on the other hand, has started doing well, but I think there is a relapse somewhere, I don’t know the reason. Osun State pensioners are just smarting from half pension, half salary. Imagine somebody earning N350 and they were being paid half of that money for eight years. That is somebody that wants to liberate Nigerians. He didn’t liberate Osun in eight years. Now he wants to liberate Nigeria. The trouble he caused in Osun State is still lingering, and Governor Adeleke is battling it to no end. We wish him well. But the matter still remains.

What are your views on the seizure of Osun State Local Government allocations by the Federal Government? Is the pensioners body thinking of joining the call for the release of the funds? How has it impacted members of your union?

Definitely, that will impact the members of our union, because in the local governments, we still have pensioners. And it is quite ironic that the president, Alhaji Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who was governor of Lagos State some time ago, and who was denied the allocations of the local government councils he created then by the President Olusegun Obasanjo Federal Government is doing this today. He went to court. Olusegun Obasanjo held on to that money until he left, the money was eventually released to him. It is quite ironic that a person that claims to be a democrat would do the same thing that was done to him. It is not right. And the accusation by opposition parties that Nigeria is drifting towards a one-party state may be right. And all ingredients to make the payment of allocations to the local governments in Osun State possible are there. The courts, everything, are there.

The president should realise that so many people that are denied this money have families, wives, children, dependants. How does he think they are going to survive? It is not right. I don’t know why we behave like this in the 21st century when everywhere outside this clime is becoming more enlightened. Instead of us being more enlightened, we are regressing into darkness. It is not right. We should be more enlightened than this. It is not right. So, pensioners in Osun State will join others in asking that President Tinubu should release the local government funds to the Osun State government.

Back to Ondo. The state is reportedly paying gratuities dating as far back as 2013 for local government retirees and 2016 for state pensioners. How has this delay impacted the lives of your members?

Of course, it will impact their lives. Many people that retired in 2013 have not gotten their pensions. Many of them would have died. Many of them would have been incapacitated by one debilitating disease or the other. As a pensioner, if you retired early, say, at the age of 60, which is the statutory age of retirement, there is no way a 60-year-old would not be nursing one disease or the other — arthritis, high blood pressure, blood sugar. Look at my bag, full of drugs I carry it everywhere, even to the toilet. So, if you now deny somebody the payment of their pension, of their gratuity, how do they survive? And that is the reason you find many of our members dying of simple ailments.

Before Governor Seyi Makinde came on board, we had, among others, one man who needed to buy a N600 drug for whitlow. He was a retired primary school teacher. And you know what primary school teachers went through for eight years before Governor Seyi Makinde came. This man, who could not afford a N600 drug and whose friends, who were also retired teachers, could not help, had about N5 million pension to collect from government. Eventually, the man died of whitlow—because of N600. With a situation like this, many pensioners would have their next-of-kin collecting their entitlements instead of collecting it themselves.

Oyo State appears to be faring better in its pension obligations. What lessons should other governors learn from them?

We give kudos to, particularly, the Oyo State governor, Engineer Seyi Makinde. He has made the lives of pensioners worthwhile. With what the governor did in January by reviewing the pay of our pensioners upwardly, Oyo State pensioners earning more than any pensioners in the whole of the federation. I’m talking of state pensioners, not federal pensioners.

If you Google search which governor or which government is taking care of pensioners, you will be surprised that it is only Oyo State. That is a very serious thing. Well, Governor Abiodun of Ogun State is trying to emulate him and we thank him for that. To this extent, we want to appeal to other governors in the South West to emulate the star governor, Engineer Seyi Makinde. The governor has promised us, pensioners in Oyo State, that all arrears of our pensions and gratuities will be paid on or before May 28, 2027, when it’s going to be his last day in office. He has made a compendium of the indebtedness of government to Oyo State pensioners. When he came in 2019, he met a humongous amount of unpaid pensions and gratuities. Just last week, he paid another N2 billion of gratuities. He has been paying that every month. In local government pension board alone, not to talk of the mainstream, Governor Makinde has paid N25 billion gratuities hitherto unpaid by past administrations.

Beyond paying arrears, what structural reforms would you like to see in pension administration to prevent a recurrence of these backlogs?

The first thing that one would want to happen is a change of mindset of those that are going to be at the helm of affairs. Mindset, because if you say you want to proffer certain structures or solutions and the person that comes does not look in that direction, what do you do. If the man that is coming after Seyi Makinde does not have the mindset of Seyi Makinde, what are we going to do? Anyway, the union will do many things. We will go back to the streets. We may be old, but we are not tired. We will all go back to the streets in Oyo State if we get a governor that would want to take us back to Egypt. We will refuse. It is an early warning to the next governor; that he should follow in the footsteps of Seyi Makinde or exceed his performance. Anything less than what Makinde has done and is doing for the citizenry and particularly pensioners will not be tolerated from anybody that comes on board next. That is the truth of the matter.

The Nigerian constitution, as bad as people say it is, still has some good aspects, if people with good conscience had followed it, but we don’t have people with good conscience. And the reason is that to get to that position has become a monetary affair. You can imagine how much a politician at the local government level pays today for an expression of interest form, let alone if they are contesting to be governor or president. If the person is lucky and sails through the primaries, to be able to go into the nooks and crannies of the state or the country would take billions of naira. Of course, when such a person comes in, the first they would want to do is to recoup the money. So, they would not look in the direction of somebody that is being owed their entitlement. But he must look in that direction if he wants peace.

Many Nigerians argue that the neglect of pensioners reflects a wider culture of disregard for senior citizens in the country. Do you agree?

Yes, I agree. The neglect of pensioners does not only reflect a disregard for senior citizens, it fuels corruption. If those at work see what is happening to their retired colleagues. If they see that for five, 10 years, he has not been paid his gratuities, they might be tempted to help themselves with government money in their charge, knowing full well that the future for them is dark, gloomy and miserable. If the government wants to eradicate or reduce the rate of corruption, they should take care of pensioners. In those days, to retire was a thing of joy, because the day you retired, you were given your cheque for gratuity and the following month, you start your pension. Now, it is not so. So, if the government wants to do something to eradicate corruption, they should start from taking care of pensioners. If the governments pay pensions and gratuities, many people would love to retire and face other businesses.

Some pensioners reportedly die while waiting for their entitlements. How does the NUP keep track of such cases, and are there plans to seek legal remedies for families left behind?

Well, I want to state that the era that pensioners die on queues is almost gone,. For example, that doesn’t happen in Oyo State any longer. And at the federal level, we angled for a body to take care of pensioners under the DBS—Defined Benefit Scheme, that is, the old scheme. So, the government established PITAD, that is, Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate. That PITAD is to take care of pensioners under the Defined Benefits Scheme until the last pensioner dies. And the body has been handling the matter of pensioners quite well. There has been no issue of people going down on queue again. In fact, PITAD has done something that takes care of your documents without any hassle whenever you retire. You are put on pension and then you key into the link every six months from the comfort of your room and the link marks you as alive. It doesn’t happen again, but where it happens, we want to advocate that our union branches in those states should take the matter up legally.

The police pension system in Nigeria is currently facing a crisis, with retired police officers protesting inadequate and delayed pension payments, particularly under the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS). What is your take on this?

I have said several times that the way the contributory pension scheme in Nigeria is organised has not brought smiles to the faces of pensioners under that scheme. The scheme was imported into Nigeria, but in those countries where they do it, they do it with human face and they take care of those that have that money. That is why we find out that abroad you have some people that they refer to as senior citizens. It is their money that they are using to develop those countries and so they take care of them. They give them subsidised medication, they give them subsidised transportation, they give them subsidised everything, even in the restaurants. But here, they take our money but they don’t take care of us. No medical service, no transportation. Even the money that they are taking from us, return on investment is inadequate, where there is even any at all. The contributory pension scheme has not benefitted those under it and that will be so until there is a rethink or reject or restructuring of that scheme.

For example, the people under the scheme don’t have gratuities. It is what you pay that you are given, maybe, half of. The remaining of the money in your account is now spread over a number of years that they think you are going to stay alive. Who are they to determine when I’m going to die? You think because people in my family die at the age of 70 and I retire at the age of 60, that perhaps I have 10 more years; you will spread my money over the next 10 years. What happens if I don’t die in 10 years?

The sad aspect of this contributory pension scheme is that many of those that carved it out have opted out of it. The Head of Service of the Federation is not under it. Top officers are not there. The military was there before. I don’t think that they are there any longer. The police don’t want to be there again. So, if the police are not there and the military is not there, it will only remain the bloody civilians that will be suffering the shenanigans of these PFAs [Pension Fund Administrators]. You are trading with our money, but not giving us adequate return on our investment. And, is it not even an insult that if I retire at the age of 60, they are now telling me that I don’t know how to manage my money, that you are going to help me manage my money? Are you going to manage my money for free? That contributory pension scheme must be rejigged, restructured, to serve the interests of pensioners in the country.

Corruption in pension administration has been a recurring problem in Nigeria. What safeguards would you recommend to ensure pension funds are not diverted?

The first thing, like I have told you, is that pensioners should be taken care of. Let there be a clean sweep of indebtedness to pensioners by government, federal government, state government, local government. Let them clear all arrears of pensions and gratuities.

Source: Tribune