Comrade Godwin Abumisi, National President of the Nigerian Union of Pensioners (NUP), in this interview with CHRISTIAN APPOLOS, speaks on why Define Benefit Scheme (DBN) pensioners are pleading with President Bola Tinubu not to scrap the Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD) as recommended by the Oransaye Report.
SINCE the news of the Federal Government decision to implement the Oronsaye Report, some pensioners have been calling on the president to spare PTAD. Why is that?
The first thing you need to know is that if there is anything worst than hell, that was what Define Benefit Scheme pensioners went through in the hands of the ministry before PTAD was established and mandated to handle our issues. We slept at the federal secretariat and under bridges in Abuja, died while queuing on long verification lines and dehumanised.
Since PTAD came, you have not heard the voice of pensioners complaining maltreatment in the management of pension. Before PTAD, Nigerian pensioners experienced the worst treatment ever. We were dehumanised and being kicked around anyhow.
I remember how I travelled several times from Enugu in night buses to come to Abuja for what the then Office of the Head of Service of the Federation called verification. Like other pensioners of our category, I travelled countless time through night buses to come to Abuja to settle other issues regarding my pension. Then, if you had issues on anything at all, you have to come to Abuja and you have to take night buses. Many of us lost our lives while coming to Abuja to settle pension issues.
We usually arrive very early, around 4am or 5am and we would sleep on the corridors of the federal secretariat. When they decided that the pensioners were messing up the place, they ejected us and we began to sleep under the bridges. That was our experience before PTAD.
It was the handling of pensions in the ministry that created the likes of Maina, who is now in prison as a result of embezzlement of pension money. That is what pensioners fear on hearing that we will be sent back to the ministry. As a matter of fact, no pensioner wants to go back to the ministry because pension problem is not a small problem. It needs a separate entity like PTAD to deal with it.
I want to say that we are impressed and we are very happy with the performance and functions of PTAD in dealing with pension issues. We don’t want to go back to Egypt. We are not saying that merging of ministries and some parastatals by government to reduce cost is not good. But we are saying that on area where they ought not to merge one of those agencies is PTAD, due to the essential nature of its duties. That is why we are crying.
I have a letter here from the Nigerian Union of Pensioners South-west calling on us the national headquarters to organise a protest against the scrapping of PTAD. But instead of street protests, we will engage President Tinubu’s government peacefully. And that is why we are saying please give us PTAD back. If there is anything in PTAD that the government does not want, it should be removed, but please leave PTAD alone to cater to pensioners.
With the amount of work PTAD has done so far, the pensioners are happy, though it still has not been possible to completely take care of all the issues of pensioners. You can imagine what will happen when government sends us back to the ministry or merges us with another agency that has other responsibilities other than pension issues. So, we say again, we don’t want to go back to the ministry.
All we want is an agency that will deal specifically with Defined Benefits Scheme pension and other related issues. We don’t want somebody who will be doing other things and still take the huge responsibility of paying pension and resolving related issues. Believe me, our pension will not be paid as and when due if government sends us to any other place other than PTAD. We don’t want our people to die by accident coming to Abuja for this or that, because what we faced in the past will come back.
During that time, pensioners died on long verification lines conducted by Maina and his group. But since PTAD came, you don’t hear that pensioners die on verification anymore. In fact, you can now stay in your room and do the verification and confirm you aliveness through the latest PTAD internet-based verification platform.
Instead of talking about scrapping PTAD, government should rather empower and equip the agency to be more effective and efficient. This is a progressive government; we should be talking about provision of better treatment for Nigeria’s pensioners and the elderly across board. Government should think of welfare programmes that will give people reason not to steal public funds and to retire early so that more job opportunities will be open for our teeming youths. Things will get worst for pensioners if government scrap PTAD and it will have adverse effect.
The fact that the government is not being intentional towards provision of welfare to cushion the effect of economic hardship is part of the reasons insecurity and other vices are worsening in Nigeria. Citizens’ basics needs are not met or supported by the government. And when the citizens try and things are not changing for better, some resort to criminality.
The first need of any human being is food. Hunger is a form of punishment. So, we are asking government to pay pension that will be enough for any pensioner and his family to have a daily meal. Monthly pension should be enough to do that. The second need is medical attention. Abroad and even in sister-countries like Ghana, elderly people are better treated.
In Nigeria, government give the impression that anybody who is sick has the money to pay for his treatment and that is wrong. Nigeria has for too long been a capitalist state. We are now urging that government in Nigeria should begin to think of how it can make the country a welfare state. This should be done by targeting the poor and the pensioners. Food, healthcare and shelter, these are the three most important needs of pensioners and many citizens in Nigeria.
We will write to the Federal Government. In fact, we are using this medium to appeal to President Tinubu to consider our situation and experiences and spare PTAD for us. We have strong belief that government will hear our cry and call. We will explain to government why we do not want to go back to the ministry.
You recently said some state governments pay pensioners in their state as low as N450. Can you explain more?
Before I deal with the consequence, I would like to say what the cause of the poor pension payment is. Section 173 (3) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) says that pension shall be reviewed every five years or with the Federal Government review of its own workers salary, whichever is earlier. But that section of the constitution is not being implemented. In fact, all the sections relevant to pension are not being implemented because if they increase pension every five years as stipulated by the constitution, the pension of our members would be adjusted. And if they have been adjusted, I can tell you that some of the members who are poor earners will come up to the N100,000 we are now demanding should be our minimum pension.
But because these adjustments were not being made as stipulated by the constitution, that is why some of our members are earning poorly. So, our point is that they should begin to deal with pensioners as stated in the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. If they were doing this, we will have no business complaining that the Nigerian pensioners are earning low because with every government’s new salary structure, pensions will be increased. That is why states like Enugu, Abia, Osun and some others are paying as low as N450 monthly.
We are calling on the Federal Government to devise measures to get the state government to obey the constitution. Pension is item 44 on the exclusive list of the Federal Government. So it is the right of the Federal Government to ensure enforcement of pension payment across the country. My understanding of the constitution is that if any other law is inconsistent with the provision of this constitution, that other law, to the extent of that inconsistency, becomes null and void. So, if fiscal federalism is inconsistent or in conflict with the provision of the constitution which says pension is in the exclusive function of the Federal Government, that fiscal federalism should come below the constitution of the country which empowers the Federal Government to enforce the provisions of the constitution on pensions
As a result of the refusal of the Federal Government to enforce the provision of the constitution regarding state governments paying pensions, a lot of us have died. Do you know that many people depend on pension to live? There are people who cannot buy their medication until they get their pension.
Some people say pensioners have their children abroad, but I am not talking about those pensioners whose children are abroad. I am not talking about those who retired as permanent secretaries or directors. Apart from these group, which other group of pensioners can afford to send their children overseas? I am talking about us. Our children are not overseas. We don’t have anybody sending money back to us. So we solely depend on our pension. Majority of us, by the time we left the service, we were already elderly and aged, so even farming was very difficult at our age.
We need the money to buy our drugs. And you can now see that the prices of drugs have skyrocketed. At least if they cannot give us food, they should give us our drugs to take, so that we will be alive till our Creator calls us.
Has any pensioner received the palliative the Federal Government, in agreement with organised labour, promised to pay?
No pensioner has received a dime. The Federal Government has paid civil servants and public servants their N35,000 wage award palliative, it has not paid pensioners. What government should have done was to take the two at the same time or pay pensioners first. Or while paying workers, you equally pay pensioners. In other climes, pensioners and the aged or elderly people are paid first. When the white man was here, pensioners were paid before workers.
