The secretary of the Nigeria Union of Pensioners (NUP) in Oyo State and the South West Public Relations Officer of the union, Dr Olusegun Abatan, speaks with SAHEED SALAWU on the lot of pensioners in the scheme of things in the nation, as well as their hopes and aspirations.
How have pensioners been coping with the cost-of-living crisis in the country?
Before Tinubu came, life was not as bad as this. In spite of the fact that the administration of Buhari was not a good one, life was not as difficult, as tough and as brutish as it is under Tinubu. What are the measures that this government has put in place to take care of Nigerians? No insurance policy, no subsidy on drugs, no subsidy on fuel, no subsidy on housing.
The Oyo State government two weeks ago released a list of 5,600 successful applicants for appointment into the teaching service. As a parent and a leader of the pensioners in Oyo State, you should have a comment on that?
Great. It will be recalled that three or four years ago, this same governor employed about 5,000 into the state workforce. If that had been happening, say, every four years in Oyo State, we would not have a plethora of unemployed youths. If this had been happening before Seyi Makinde came on board, Oyo State people would have been happy; in Oyo State, we would not have riff-raffs, hoodlums knocking on the doors of people not only at night but also in the afternoon to loot and to steal. I give kudos to Seyi Makinde for that. He has done well.
The Nasarawa State governor, Alhaji Abdullahi Sule, last week called for a decisive solution to the menace of Almajiri and out-of-school-children in the North. Do you agree with the governor that the Almajiri problem is the main problem of Nigeria?
The North should think. When the southerners are sending their children to school, the North is there doing nothing to help their children. Unfortunately, a great number of political elites, those that are taking positions of authority in this country, are from the North. Many heads of state, many ministers, many chairmen of boards and agencies are from the North. Whose children are supposed to have gained more in Nigeria than children from the North? But nobody is taking care of anybody in the North. The North is reaping the consequences of not taking the lives of their youths seriously over the years. The problem didn’t start today. It didn’t start 20 years ago. In fact, it didn’t start 50 years ago. Here in the South, people are going to school. In the North, they are marrying school-age girls and you want Almajiri not to be there. Here in the South, couples discipline themselves to have three-four children or even two. There, you can have as many children as you want without any means of taking care of them.
The problem of Almajiri should not concern Nigeria, it concerns the North; they should solve their problem. That is my candid opinion. They should discipline their groins. Some time ago, two military officers from the North reportedly came to visit another officer in the South West. At a point during the visit, the northern officers asked their southern colleague how many children he had. The man said four. They said he was not a man. One of them said he had 33 children, the other said he had 27. Two people having 60 children, how do you take care of such? They should discipline their groins. The mindset of the North and the South is different. In the North, you want to have as many children as you want. Here in the South, you want to have as many children as you can take care of. Well, luckily, they have been meeting northern leaders, northern elites have been meeting. Let them continue to meet and discipline themselves.
How would you describe the state of the nation, especially as it affects pensioners?
The condition of pensioners right now in Nigeria is dire. If yhe young trees are falling, the dry trees will not stand. That is exactly what is happening. The entire country has been thrown into turmoil, particularly with two obnoxious policies of this Federal Government, the first being the removal of subsidy without any plan to cushion the effect of such policy to the effect that many things since that time have turned upside down. The second one is the floating of the naira against other currencies of the world. That has really done harm to many people, apart form other issues that are on ground.
This Federal Government has not, for once, thought about things that will make life better for the people, and, of course, pensioners, who are the most vulnerable, are seriously affected. That is why I said earlier that if young trees are falling, then what will happen to dry trees? The condition of pensioners in the country has been very dire. As I speak with you, throughout the federation, we still have pensioners that are being paid N350 per month, some N150. How does such a person survive? And that is the reason why you find many of us that are still useful to this country dying like fowls. The condition has been very, very bad.
And unfortunately, in this country, there has not been any programme for senior citizens, for pensioners. In saner climes, there are schemes that take care of senior citizens, of pensioners, e.g., subsidy on transportation, subsidy on medicament, subsidy on housing. Here, your pension doesn’t even come on time. In saner climes, you don’t have to queue on a line before you get your entitlement. If the arrangement was that you would be taking your pension on the 25th day of every month, so would it be. And if there was going to be any increase in your pension, you wouldn’t have to go and queue to have that increase; it would just reflect on your pension. It doesn’t here. In fact, in this place, in Nigeria, your pensions are not even increased in 14 years whereas the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended), states that any time salaries and wages of workers are increased, pensions should also be increased, or increased every five years, whichever comes earlier.
Those that have been in charge of us, of Nigerians, since 1999 have not been in government because of Nigerians; they have been in government because of themselves and probably because of members of their families. Unfortunately, every four years, we stupidly line up and give them the mandate to continue to punish us, to continue to cheat us, to continue to degrade us, to continue to humiliate us.
The federal and state governments have announced the new minimum wage. How does this affect pensioners?
Like I said earlier, Section 210 (3) and Section 173 (3) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria state emphatically that whenever salaries ate increased, pensions should also be increased. Pensions and salaries are on the Exclusive List of the constitution, meaning that it is mandatory. But unfortunately, many of these governors have been violating this constitutional provision. In fact, the ongoing workers’ wage increase has not seen a concomitant increase in pensions. Unfortunately, some of our members in some states are playing to the gallery when, for example, in Ogun State, the governor said he had increased pension to N20,000. What is N20,000 to somebody now? In that same state, pension increase of the year 2010 was not done for pensioners. In the year 2019, consequential adjustment to the increase of salaries was not done for pensioners in that state. In April this year, there was a circular that said that 20 percent pension increase should be given to pensioners. That has not been done. In September this year, there was another circular that said that N32,000 should be given to pensioners across the board as a result of this workers’ wage increase. If that government had taken along all these increases, it wouldn’t have been N20,000 that would be given to pensioners in Ogun State.
And I am saying to the Oyo State government as well that pensioners in Oyo State would not want to be short-changed. To that effect, we are urging the Oyo State government to, as a matter of urgency, take into consideration, 33 percent pension increase which should have been implemented in 2010, consequential adjustment to the salaries of workers, which was done in 2019 and on which we had an agreement with the government that should be given to Oyo State pensioners should also be factored into this coming wage increase. And then the 20 percent increase should also be taken into account and then the N32,000 across the board. Already, we have got our own broad sheet of pension review. I have it here. We want good money to be given to pensioners in Oyo State as part of the ongoing wage increase arrangement.
Already, the state governor, in his magnanimity, has said that he is going to give workers of Oyo State N80,000. That is a good one. If Oyo State pensioners get a minimum of N60,000 pension, I don’t think it is too much for people that have worked and have spent more than 90 percent of their lives in the service of this state.
You said earlier that some pensioners are being paid as poorly as N350 monthly, what is the arithmetic of that kind of pension?
It is as a result of state governors not implementing the constitutional provision of increasing pensions when salaries are increased. Many of these pensioners that I am telling you about have been earning that N350 since they retired over 25-30 years ago. If the governors were not that wicked and they had implemented increases… There have been so many increases unimplemented by these state governments… If I go backwards, pensioners had during the time of Obasanjo, N150 percent pension increase, 30 percent pension increase, 142 percent pension increase. You will not believe that many state governments did not implement these increases. We also had six percent pension increases, 15 percent pension increases later on. That’s about five times pensioners were entitled to these increases. These governments did not implement those increases. If somebody was on N350 when they retired and we had had governments that were not wicked and they had done these increases, this N350 would have been increased five times.
After that, you had 60 percent, 15 percent increases. Then you have the latest–well, not latest as such–33 percent pension increases, consequential adjustment increases, 20 percent in April 2024 and N33,000 across the board in September 2024. Let us even consider N32,000 for somebody who is earning N350. Not that I am saying N32,000 is good, but is that not going to make a difference? Let us now calculate all the percentage increases that I have mentioned.
In fact, the 1999 Constitution also is our bane, because before 1999, pension was on first-line charge. When they carved the obnoxious 1999 Constitution, which everybody has seen that is not a friendly constitution to Nigerians, they removed pension from being on first-line charge. So, the governors had a field day not paying pensions as and when due. They had a field day not paying gratuities as and when due. In fact, as far as gratuities are concerned, some state governments in Nigeria have not paid gratuities of their pensioners since 2009, and we are in 2024. Look at the mindset of such governors. And these same governors would, through their Houses of Assembly, enact laws that would make them earn pensions for life. They would also have their vehicles changed every three years. They would also have buildings erected for them in choice areas of the country where some pensioners are earning N350. You can see the wickedness of human beings. The maltreatment of pensioners is the foundation of corruption in this country, because those workers that are at work now, when they see their ogas, their brothers, sisters that retired not getting their entitlements for 10-15 years, would they not steal to make themselves comfortable? Not until the governments of Nigeria treat pensioners well shall we have a sane country.
Your union in Oyo State just commissioned its hospital on Wednesday. Where did you get the money to do it, and what is the philosophy behind it?
The philosophy behind it is that we looked at ourselves over the past years, particularly before Seyi Makinde came on board, and we discovered that pensioners in Oyo State were dying like fowls. At the last count, we had about 560 pensioners that died within a period of two and a half years in Oyo State with no government concerned about our plight. So, we said if the government did not care about how we were dying, we should also care about how to live. And we set in motion, the process of having a hospital of our own. And the ingenuity of our getting the money to do it started about six years ago when we wanted to erect our office complex. This building that we call Africa’s model is the most magnificent, most opulent building built exclusively by pensioners in the whole of Nigeria and in fact, the whole world. This secretariat, it was pensioners that built it. Each pensioner contributed one percent of their meager pension. Even the man that was earning N350 contributed N3 and so we built this house.
You also have pensioners radio. Why a radio?
After we finished the house, we discovered that we needed our voice to be heard because past administrations were stifling our demands. Whenever we went on rallies, on street walks, the governments would influence the press not to carry the activities. So, we decided to have our own radio and we have our own radio, Pensioners 106.7 FM.
So, we now agreed, all of us, that anybody that retired in Oyo State, since we took three years to build this house, would be contributing one percent for three years as development levy. It was part of this development levy that we have used to establish our hospital, and it is a massive, beautiful hospital. Our intention is to make it one of the best not only in the South West but in the whole country. The Oyo State governor, Engineer Seyi Makinde, who has been a friend of Oyo State pensioners, commissioned the hospital. That is the story: we don’t want to die again.
READ ALSO: Oyo govt shortlists 15,000 applicants for civil service recruitment
and then