Dr Olusegun Abatan is the Public Relations Officer of the Nigeria Union of Pensioners (NUP) in the South-West and the secretary of the union in Oyo State. He speaks with SAHEED SALAWU on the lot of pensioners in the grand scheme of things in the country.
Pension administration is a major issue in Nigeria. What would you say is the problem?
I want to speak not only as the secretary of the Nigeria Union of Pensioners, Oyo State Council, but as the Public Relations Officer of the Nigeria Union of Pensioners, South-West Zone, and as an important member of the Nigeria Union of Pensioners nationwide. There are lots of problems for pensioners in Nigeria. From the colonial era to the First Republic and the time of the military adventurists, pension administration in Nigeria was flawless. People retired and got their entitlements without any hassle. Your gratuity was paid to you on the last day of your service; before you left office. And a month after that, you started collecting your pension. Even during the military era, it was the same thing; no hassle; no problems; pensioners were treated as human beings.
The problem of pensioners started with the Fourth Republic; from 1999 to date. I refrain from calling those that have been in the political firmament of Nigeria from 1999 as leaders. I don’t call them leaders. I call them dealers because they are dealing with us. Since 1999, the lives of pensioners have been brutish and short. Our entitlements have never been attended to. Politicians, from 1999, have been insensitive to the plight of pensioners. The mindset of those that have been at the helm of affairs since 1999 — I won’t call them leaders, as I have said — has been that pensioners are spent forces like the cob that you throw away after eating the corn. A past governor once said he had not attended to living beings and pensioners that were dead bodies were asking for their entitlements. That has been the problem with us.
We have got problems. Take the South-West for example, as I speak with you, the indebtedness of governments in the region to pensioners has amounted to over N330 billion, with Osun State topping the list with about N125 billion; Ogun State, about N80 billion; Ondo State, about N70 billion. It goes on like that. Before we went to court during the time of former Governor Abiola Ajimobi, the indebtedness of Oyo State government to pensioners at the local government sector, that is, those who retired from the local governments and retired primary school teachers, was N42.3 billion. Out of this N42.3 billion, incumbent Governor Seyi Makinde has paid over N14 billion. At the state level (of pensioners), the governor has paid N8 billion, making N22 billion. And he is still paying it. But the other state governments, Ondo, Ogun, Osun and Ekiti, have not been very friendly and responsive to pensioners. Lagos State is free, and the reason is this: Lagos is the first state in the whole of the federation to embrace the contributory pension scheme. But that is another issue entirely which we may discuss later. So, to that extent, Lagos is not owing pensioners any gratuities. But there are still some areas where the Lagos State government has not discharged its responsibilities in terms of arrears of pensions: 142 per cent pension; 33.4 per cent pension; and consequential adjustment of pension. In Oyo State, we also have our demands which we have encapsulated in a 13-point demand for the state government.
So, all told, at the local government, state and federal levels, pensioners have been handed the short end of the stick. It has been so traumatic, so dehumanising, so bad.
Of all the states of the federation, Imo is leading with over 70 months of unpaid gratuities and pensions. And these governors are people who would, after spending just four years or maximum of eight years, claim severance allowance running into billions of naira. They would position themselves to earn pensions for life. They would arrange that their vehicles be changed every three or four years; that they should have houses in choice areas in Nigeria, whereas somebody who spent 35 years (in civil service) does not get anything. As I speak with you, we have pensioners who are earning N330 a month. The pensions board can attest to this. I am not talking of N330,000, I am talking of N330. There are pensioners who are earning N1,000, N2,000, N2,500, N5,000 a month. What can N5,000 do in the life of a pensioner when a bag of rice is now N40,000, when the cost of petrol is now between N250 and N280 per litre?
You said earlier that the contributory pension scheme was ‘another issue entirely’. Would you like to expatiate on that statement?
The contributory pension scheme has a lot of challenges. The scheme, in the first instance, was not supposed to have included those who were already in the old pension scheme. What the scheme was supposed to have done was to start with those who were employed in 2003 or 2007, when the thing started. Two, the people — or the man — who crafted that contributory pension scheme crafted it to favour their cronies, those who would have free access to our money without paying interest. Workers would contribute money. They would invest some of our money without our knowledge. They would make profit without our knowledge. The profit would not be given us.
Another thing is that those who crafted the contributory pension scheme have exited it. Those who crafted it at the Federal Government level, at the Office of the Head of the Service of the Federation, the permanent secretaries and so on and so forth have exited the scheme. They are now in the old pension scheme. Why did they exit it? When it was started, the whole country was there, the military, the police, the SSS, etcetera. They have all exited it. It now remains the mekunus in the ministries, departments and agencies of the government. Also, you will recall that pensioners died on queues whenever they came for verification exercises. This led to our complaints to the government. These complaints led to the establishment of the Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD). And this, to an extent, has stopped the issue of fake pensioners. Before then, there were issues of fake pensioners and the office of the Head of Service of the Federation was, in fact, the cesspool of that corruption. But PTADA, verification exercises are now done with human face and some sensitivity to our plight.
But another problem pensioners, especially at the ministries, departments and agencies of government, are facing is that there is a constitutional provision which says that whenever salaries of workers are increased, pensions should also be concomitantly increased but, unfortunately, we have emperors as governors. They don’t respect this constitutional provision and that has led to what I told you some minutes ago; that pensioners earn as little as N330. Their pension should have been increased several times. But these governors don’t honour this constitutional provision. In a saner clime, these governors would have been jailed for constitutional breaches. I want to state that many of the Nigerian governors are insensitive to the plights of pensioners, including those governors who receive, apart from the normal allocations they get from the Federation Account, 13 per cent derivation. They don’t pay pensioners their entitlements. We are only lucky here in Oyo State that we have somebody who has the milk of kindness in him. Before Seyi Makinde came, somebody did not pay the gratuities of pensioners, particularly retired primary school teachers and local government pensioners, for eight years. And what was his grouse? He said they did not vote for him. How would you know who did not vote for you? The pension indebtedness of governments in Nigeria is running into, maybe, a trillion naira. As I speak with you, the Nigerian Union of Pensioners in Osun State has taken the state government to court. We did that to two governments in Oyo State — Adebayo Alao-Akala and Abiola Ajimobi’s governments.
There is a conspiracy of governors against pensioners in Nigeria such that pension increases are not addressed. In 2010, there was supposed to be a pension increase of 33.4 per cent. No government in Nigeria did that for pensioners. Section 210, Subsection 3 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 , as amended, states that pensions should be increased concomitantly as salaries are increased every five years. There was an increase in workers’ salaries in 2007 and that was the pension increase we, pensioners, had last, even here in Oyo State. There was salary increase for workers in 2010 and there was supposed to be a concomitant increase of 33.4 per cent for pensioners. As I speak with you, no government in Nigeria has implemented that for us. Between 2010 and 2019, we were supposed to have had pension increment twice. In Oyo State, the pension of pensioners had remained static since 2007, that is, 16 years ago, meaning that our pension should have been reviewed three times. But we have remained like that since 2007. In 2019, there was an increase in workers’ salaries from N18,000 to N30,000, and then there was the consequential adjustment. NUP, Oyo State, was part of that arrangement. In item nine of that arrangement, that Memorandum of Understanding, we said anytime there was a circular from the Federal Government for this consequential adjustment, the government was going to honour it. As I speak with you, the government has not honoured it. In another one year, we are going to have another salary increase. So, there is a conspiracy all over the country against pensioners. In a good country, all these governors would have been railroaded into prison.
You said the point of departure between what used to be the culture as far as pension is concerned in Nigeria and what obtains now was 1999. What exactly happened in 1999 that brought about anguish for pensioners in the country?
Prior to 1999, payment of pension was on the first-line charge. But the evil ones who drafted the 1999 Constitution, the evil ones who were preparing the ground for those who were to come and take over government, in 1999, removed pension from the first-line charge. First-line charge meant that anytime money was allotted for payment of emoluments to workers, pension was supposed to be paid first. But with the removal of pension from the first-line charge, pension payment became a choice for governors. It became a question of, ‘If I like, I can pay you. If I like, I won’t pay you’. That was where Nigerian pensioners were hurt. We got it wrong, not only in the area of pension payment but in other areas too, from 1999. What good has happened to Nigerians from 1999 to date?
Before Makinde came, pensioners in Oyo State were not paid their gratuities for complete eight years. Before Makinde came, the pensions of some of our pensioners were paid in percentages such that a monthly pension was paid in three months. For those months that you were not paid, arrears of pensions were accumulating. Before we went to court, there were accrued arrears of pension amounting to N42.3 billion.
Recently, Governor Makinde gave public sector pensioners in the state a Christmas bonus of N10,000 each. What is your opinion on this?
I started it. There was a meeting between the labour movement in Oyo State and His Excellency about three weeks ago. At that meeting, I presented to His Excellency three of the 13 demands of pensioners. The first one I presented was that our pension had remained static since 2007 and he should do something about it. The second one was that there was a backlog of pension arrears that needs to be addressed. The third demand I presented was that what is good for the goose is also good for the gander. I said His Excellency had been paying 13th month salaries to workers; that pensioners would also love his government to give us 13th month pension. He said he was going to address the issue of our pension that had remained stagnant since 2007. On the issue of pension arrears, he said he was going to pay the arrears before the end of his tenure. On the the third demand, the 13th month pension, he was honest with us. He said he would look into the purse of the government and if the payment was not going to be feasible, he would give us something for Christmas. Twenty-four hours after that meeting, he gave an order that N10,000 be paid to each pensioner in the state. It was a novel thing. I want to state that this was the first time any governor in the whole of the federation would do something like that for pensioners. Unfortunately, some political charlatans were saying that the N10,000 was a bribe. When they were in government, why did they not ‘bribe’ us? They were in government for eight years and they did not deem it okay to ‘bribe’ us. They said that Makinde had been bribing us since he came on board. I said yes, he has been ‘bribing’ us with the payment of our pension every 25th day of the month. If the 25th day falls on a Sunday, he would pay on Friday. He has been ‘bribing’ us with the payment of our gratuities that were held by somebody for eight years. Seyi Makinde has been paying gratuities which were withheld by past governments since 2008. He is now on 2014. Since he came on board four years ago, he has paid about N22 billion of gratuities unpaid by past governments.
We have in the political firmament of Nigeria, despots, criminal governors. But there are also benevolent despots among them. It was former Governor Lam Adesina (of Oyo State) who increased gratuity from N50 million to N100 million. And Lam Adesina left in 2003. That was 20 years ago. Since 2003, before Seyi Makinde came, salaries of workers had increased and that also pushed gratuities higher and we wrote the past governors several times. We asked them to increase the tally from N100 million but they didn’t do it. Fortunately, when Seyi Makinde came, he didn’t even allow us to write him before he increased the gratuity from N100 million to N250 million. So, this one that you saw was a carryover of our demands because of our belief, which is the norm, that anybody who takes over government would inherit both assets and liabilities.
Is there any way the Federal Government can intervene in the case of pensioners whose pensions are too small to address their needs?
I want to say this with all sense of responsibility: the Federal Government of Muhammadu Buhari has been very good to pensioners at the federal level. He adheres to the constitutional provision of increasing pension whenever salaries of workers are increased. We hope that whoever comes after him will continue in that spirit. But to answer your question on how the Federal Government can intervene in the affairs of pensioners, unfortunately, when people want to cheat you, they invoke federalism. They say the Federal Government has nothing to do with what the states are doing; that the states have absolute power over their affairs and the Federal Government cannot dabble in them. But we know that that is not correct because the Federal Government has been dabbling in issues that concern the states. With pension, except there is a law to that effect from the National Assembly for the Federal Government to intervene where state governors are taking the plight of pensioners with levity or where the respective branches of the Nigeria Union of Pensioners take it upon themselves to have their days in court with the state governments and find a way to see to the implementation of what was determined at the court of law, I don’t think there is anything the Federal Government can do.
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