Payment of pensions as political bait

CERTAINLY, one of the indicators of underdevelopment in contemporary times is the weaponisation of poverty by the country’s political leaders. 

Basic rights are usually treated as favours. If, for instance, the governor of a state finds it convenient to describe the regular payment of monthly salaries to civil servants as a political achievement, that says a lot about how warped his perception of governance is. 

Prior to general or off-season elections in many states, state governors pay pension arrears to retired civil servants in their domains. 

In doing that, they hope to soften the ground for their re-election. Apparently, the bait doesn’t always work, because some of the governors lose out. The state governments are playing a bad game here, as there is nothing that really makes the payment of pensions unfeasible until the election season. 

They certainly owe pensioners full and copious explanations on why they could not be paid beforehand. In fact, with the exception of states like Oyo and Lagos where the payment of pensions seems to have been taken as an article of faith, there is hardly any other state in the country where pensioners aren’t owed pensions. 

The respective state governments say that they are too financially incapacitated to pay pensioners.
Meanwhile, it is their statutory responsibility to ensure that pensions are paid regularly to their intended beneficiaries. 

It is difficult to fathom how such a fundamental and inalienable right of retired workers easily morphed into bait in the hands of politicians. 

Pension payments should never be used to make pensioners to succumb to pressure and comply with political wishes and desires. 

It is wrong and unacceptable for politicians to mistreat senior citizens who have spent most of their productive years in the service of the states. 

We believe that governments ought to prioritise the payment of pensions, particularly as pensioners are mostly old people who are critically dependent on their paltry earnings to eke out some form of existence. 

We are persuaded that playing games with pension payment is utterly wicked on the part of those in leadership positions. 

If the Nigerian constitution affirms that the essence of government is the security and welfare of the people generally, why suspend the legitimate earnings of senior citizens? 

It is absurd and inconsiderate to put these senior citizens under a burden of any kind. They have, after all, worked and sacrificed for their states in order to be able to live the rest of their lives in peace and satisfaction. 

Why, in the name of all that is good and just, must politicians wait for election time before paying pensions? Why bait pensioners with their legitimate entitlements? 

We do not want to believe that it would take the coming of elections for state governments to show that they have a responsibility for paying pensions. 

At the risk of sounding repetitive, pensions are statutory and legitimate earnings of pensioners that should be paid to them in accordance with the provisions of the law. We think that toying with pensioners’ entitlements is disrespectful of the sacrifices the pensioners made to the economy of the respective states and the country when they were working. 

This is a game that is in bad taste and that ought not to have occurred. State governments should stop maltreating pensioners, making the payment of pensions a political gimmick. We believe that such an act is utterly condemnable.