As Nigeria join the rest of the world to mark the International Elder’s Abuse Awareness Day, the Executive Director, Senior Citizen Care Foundation (SCCF), Mr. Jide Taiwo, in this interview with BOLA BADMUS, talks about the plight of the elderly and what the government needs to do to ensure they are catered for. Excerpts:
What is SCCF about?
The Senior Citizens Care Foundation (SCCF) is a non- profit, non- political, non- governmental organization that sees to the interest of elderly citizens in Nigeria. SCCF has been in existence for 13 years and is being run by credible Board of Directors made up of reputable and prominent in Nigeria. The present chairman is the third chairman of the Foundation; he is Prince Bola Ajibola SAN, CFR. He has been very passionate on how to improve the care of the elderly, which is part of his constituency because he is also an elderly man. He is a senior citizen.
For 13 years now, the Foundation has been able to touch the lives of so many elderly people majorly through the SCCF Free Elderly Medi-Care Initiative. But we know the care of the elderly is not a challenge that a non- profit organization alone can solve, it is a multi- faceted thing. We have the role of government, we have the role of the family, we have the role of non- profit organizations and we also have the role of the private sector.
What is your major focus?
Since it was founded, our focus has been more on free elderly medi- care initiative. We have been achieving this by going to the rural areas after writing letters to their local government secretariats to inform them that we are bringing the service for medical screening for the elderly within that local council. So we spend 48 hours which is a 2- day programme. And the Medi- care is conducted by our medical team. So what the local council administrators provide for us are chairs, canopies and a space and they also do publicity for the senior citizens, that is, the elderly people within that local council to assemble at the secretariat at the given date. We do screening on diabetes, high blood pressure and eyes and we give drugs for free while we also give free eye glasses and do counseling.
This initiative has taken place in five major states, you know even the Bible started with Genesis and ended in Revelation. We can’t take the whole country at a go, so we are taking it gradually.
What inspired you to the care of the elderly as a young man?
I would say that there are some certain things that could be quite unexplainable. I was brought up by my paternal grandmother at Abeokuta in Ogun State. So I grew up in the midst of elderly people and by the time I even returned to Lagos to join my parents, I saw that the seed of caring for the elderly had been sowed in me from childhood. Even during my days in the university, I could remember that within the area I was living, with the little that I had, I still did so much for the elderly in that community. So when I left the university and started working, I remember that I visited the Old People’s Home at Yaba to donate welfare support. But at a point in time, somebody advised that I should establish a non- profit organization which will give more people with same passion for caring for elderly a platform to express themselves and make us do more together for the elderly in Nigeria. That was the genesis of Senior Citizens Care Foundation.
What message does your organization have for the nation as you commemorate the International Elders Abuse Awareness Day this year?
As an organization, our focus as we celebrate the International Elders Abuse Awareness Day is that we are calling on the National Assembly because as we speak today, there is no law that protects the interest of the elderly single-handedly. There are laws that protect them as citizens of Nigeria; there are laws that protect maybe female amongst them, as citizens of Nigeria, but there is no law, no policy for the elderly in Nigeria. In 2008, we sponsored a bill that was thrown out at First Reading. It was on the need to have a National Policy for the elderly in Nigeria. It was thrown out at the House of Representatives during Hon. Dimeji Bankole’s tenure. It is not something that has to do with the rich elderly people or the less- privileged elderly people; it is a policy for senior citizen.
You can see that there are ministries for youths, there are ministries for women, but there is no agency for the elderly in Nigeria that sees to the interest of the elderly, instead, issues that have to do with the elderly is placed under youths and sports ministries which doesn’t make any sense.
What exactly do you expect the National Assembly to do now?
What we want to achieve possibly is that the care of the elderly or the interest of the elderly should at least be able to peer with the way it is in the Western World. And it starts with the policy; it starts with establishing agencies that have to do with the interest of the elderly. There is none currently as we speak and it should be. Let’s use Lagos State as a case study. There was a time we got a report that most of the elderly were being neglected at Bus Stops by transport operators. Do you know why? The youth are beginning to see them as witches and wizards. Once conductors allowed them into the bus, no one wants to sit beside them; the conductors were also not allowing them inside the bus.
We have seen issues; we need to create more awareness and we are looking at having more platforms to speak so that a lot of people in the society can listen and hear us.
There are some sicknesses and challenges which are attached to old age. Such amongst them is Alzheimer; that is loss of memory. We’ve seen issues where an old man or woman would leave where he is being taken care of, maybe his house or his children’s house and he would never return because he lost memory of where he is coming from and such a man or woman would be found on the streets wandering, people would think he or she is a wizard or witch. We have seen a situation whereby an elderly woman would be saying something she has not done because she has lost her memory and they would think she is a witch and they would stone her to death. This is what the society needs to frown at and we need to create more awareness.
So a day like this that we are sharing and talking about awareness day for the abuse of the elderly, we are calling on the National Assembly, calling on the Federal Government and state governments that something should be done about implementing a National Policy for the elderly and also creating agencies that see to the care of the elderly. We have a lot of experts on the care of the elderly in this country that can work hand in hand with the government and non-profit organizations can also join them.
How many people has your organization helped?
I would say that we have lost count because if a child was born 13 years ago, by now he would know his right hand from his left hand. I remember vividly that the Free Medi- care Initiative for the elderly has touched so many lives in the grassroots. I would also want to use this opportunity to say a very big thank you to late Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin who passed away two days ago. When he was Minister of Health during Yar’Adua’s regime, one of our directors then, Senator Biyi Durojaiye, linked him with the Foundation, he was able to assist us to get free drugs to touch the lives of the elderly people.
Since establishment if I tell you that I can remember the numbers of lives that we have touched, I am only deceiving myself. They are numerous people, different people. Are we going to remember Elderly people we have intervened into their issues, people whose rights were violated? Are we going to talk about the elderly whose rights were denied and our legal team was able to take up the cause? Are we going to talk about the initiative we started in 2010 called the Senior Citizenship Certificate.
How do elderly Nigerians fare in terms of care compared to those in other parts of the world?
There is a large difference between the ways we care for the elderly in Nigeria or Africa compared to the way it is in the Western World. So many things that also affect the way we care for the elderly in Africa is surrounded by our culture and tradition. I just returned from America where I went on a tour of senior citizens centres, old people’s home and nursing homes. I saw a lot of centres for the care of the elderly; these are kinds of centres that we have not started experiencing in Nigeria. In Africa, when you tell people you took your parents to old people’s home, the African culture frowns at it. It is seen as not wanting to take care of them because our culture says when your parents take care of you from childhood to adulthood, when they are old, you in turn take care of them, but a lot of things have changed. Nowadays, even the active father and the active mother don’t have time for their children, not to talk of their old people back in the villages or those of them even living here in Lagos. It is so bad that for months they might not even send money to them for their upkeep that is, if only they send money to them at all.
For Nigerians living in Diaspora, who leave their elderly ones in the care of family members back home, most of these parents are being mal- treated. We had a case whereby a man who lives in the US left his old mother in the hands of a relative and sends dollars to Nigeria on monthly basis but the money does not get to the hands of this woman. But traditionally, the man comes home every December and as at first week in December, the family members called the old woman and told her that if you dare tell your son that we have not been taking care of you, by the time he returns in January, we would deal with you.
So when the son came back, the mother who was living in fear couldn’t tell the son what was going on. However, the son knew there was something his old mother wanted to express but couldn’t. But a neighbor was able to give the woman confidence to open up to her son. The man then got in touch with us asking if we had a place where people can keep their old people as is happening in the Western World and such person would be well taken care of. We don’t have such a place yet in Nigeria.
Are you planning something of such?
The Foundation is looking at establishing a senior citizen centre, which would be a research centre where you can get to know about traditions and cultures of Africans as regards the elderly people and also get the information there. People who have retired and feel their homes are boring, their neighborhood is boring can come in the morning and leave in the evening. But people who choose to live voluntarily within the centre can also do so. So we are looking at something that can be in place like in the Western World, the way we can design it to fill into our culture but it is not an old people’s home, it is just a senior citizens’ centre.
and then