LAMENTATION OF GOVT RETIREES .By Besiru Enakhimion.

This piece was initially titled, "The need for timely payment of gratuities and pension to government retirees ". 

It was later changed to the one above, to show to the world the heartbreaking experience of government retirees in Nigeria . The situation is also generalized here because the sufferings of government retirees are all the same .

Until recently when the Supreme court was said to have pronounced that civil servants have the right to go into the business of politics, the only extra job the civil servants were permitted to go into is farming . 

The life of a civil servant in Nigeria is mostly characterized by borrowing for survival ; borrowing from financial institutions at high interest rates ; paying up debts at the end of the month and borrowing at the beginning of another month ; all for survival .

With the exemption of few civil servants who are lucky to occupy  offices where some extra  allowances are available, civil servants' salaries hardly meet money in their bank accounts .  Civil servants suffer this through out the periods of their service . 99% of them quit the service with empty bank accounts and various forms of debts hanging on them. 

As soon as a civil servant retires, he or she ceases to receive salaries or any form of allowance from the government  . His or her full month salary will not be paid to him or her in the month of exit from service .If the retirement of a civil servant takes effect on the 6th of March , 2023, the government pays him or her a salary for only six days of that month ;Only salaries for the number of days spent in the office for the last month in service will be paid to him or her . Is that retiree friendly ? Isn't that a better way of telling the retirees to go and suffer after spending the younger and better parts of their lives to serve the  government ?

The civil servant who was not lucky to build a house of his or her own due to his or her financial status will remain in rented apartment as a tenant . He or she pays house rents , other bills and fends for members of his or her family . Yet, it takes  retirees one year and some months to access their gratuities and pensions . The period between the effective date of retirement of the civil servants and the over one year period it takes them to access gratuities and pension is usually a period of starvation and deprivation . What do our various governments expect such retirees to depend on ? How are the retirees to pay their house rents, children's school fees , pay for feeding and other services ? 

There is a prayer point that every one loves . It says, " May our evenings be better than our mornings". To that prayer point, most people always declare, "AMEN " . 

Unfortunately, the mornings of most civil servants in Nigeria are usually better than their evenings. They seem to end up in suffering . It's so pathetic that civil servants  are the worst treated employees in Nigeria . 

The condition of the federal civil servant is even better than that of the states and Local government . While it takes the federal civil servants over a year to receive their gratuities and commence the collection of pensions, the state civil servants hardly receive gratuities  .For instance, in Edo state, some civil servants who retired from service over ten years ago are yet to receive their gratuities . Pensioners in the state have organized several protests to request for their gratuities and better  treatment . Have the protests actually yielded any positive result ? No . One doubts if there is any state that has a better story . It is a sad commentary in all the states.

Some retirees have even died while waiting for their gratuities .

The hard question is, If the retirees themselves have not been able to receive their gratuities while alive, what happens when they die ?will members of their families ever be able to receive it ? Even if the children are able to receive it through  miraculous means, will the beneficiary not lose about 10% of the gratuities to the state government ?

Most disappointing is that the leadership of the Nigeria Labour Congress ( NLC) seems not to be concerned or bothered about the plight of the pensioners who were once their members and who once paid union dues to them . The union leaders seem to have done away with the parlance which states that an INJURY TO ONE IS an INJURY TO ALL .

Civil servants presently in service are advised to fight against this maltreatment of retirees because if the ill treatment persists , they ( those in service) will suffer same fate when they eventually retire .

Civil servants who have   spent the better , youthful and useful part of their lives to serve the government should be well treated . Government retirees should be made to access their gratuities at least, three months after their retirements. Within the three months of retirement, the management should be able to find out if the retirees are owing the government or financial institutions . Such debts if discovered should be deducted from the retirees total savings or gratuities and the balance paid to them ( the retirees).

If a civil servant in service can be so impoverished , how about when he or she retires, without salaries and any other allowances ?

 It's very easy to advise civil servants to save towards retirement . What will the civil servants actually save ? Is he or she to save from the meager salaries that cannot even take care of him or her for a month ?  Is it the civil servant that depends on monthly borrowing that can save towards retirement ?

There have been complaints about civil servants not willing to retire even when they are due for retirement . Why will a civil servant happily and willingly retire when he or she knows that sufferings awaits him or her after retirement, as government will starve him or her for over a year. Civil servants are sometimes accused of corruption while in service too. Why will a civil servant not corruptly enrich himself or herself if the opportunity for such corruption is available ? Don't they need to save for the raining day since they know that the government will starve them of their funds for over a year after retirement ?

The civil servants that have retired from service must have spent the better , useful and youthful part of their lives to serve the governments ( Federal, State and Local ) , therefore, they ( civil servants) deserve to be well treated . They need to access their gratuities and pensions within two or three months after retirement . The leadership of Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and  governments at all levels should do the needful to create smiles on the faces of government retirees.

Protesting Pensioners .