- Flogging of pensioners cannot be the answer to unpaid pensions
A new low was introduced into the dehumanisation of pensioners in the country when, on August 4, some thugs reportedly beat up pensioners protesting non-payment of their pension for months, in front of the Imo State Government House in Owerri, the state capital. The protest was about the fifth in less than two months by the senior citizens who had earlier been drenched in water as they marched from Wayhouse Roundabout. Undeterred, they continued their protest until they got to the front of the government house where they were reportedly flogged by the hoodlums. Some of the protesters, particularly the women, sustained injuries in the melee. It took a detachment of policemen led by an assistant commissioner of police, Mr. A. J. Moses, to restore calm to the area.
This was the news in the public domain, at least until the state commissioner for information and strategy, Declan M. Emelumba, gave the government’s version of the story. Emelumba accused the immediate past administration in the state of masterminding the protest and using the pensioners as cannon fodder. He said most of the pensioners in the state had been paid, with the exception of those having technical issues which, apparently, arose from the government’s resolve to check corruption that had permeated pension payment in the state, as in many other places in the country.
The commissioner said organised labour in the state was on the same page with the state government since its leadership had been taken into confidence on the reasons for the delay in paying the remaining pensioners.
We know that there is no love lost between the incumbent state government and its predecessor. And our politicians can politicise anything. So, we would not want to discredit the state government’s version of the story. All we want to counsel at this point is that it should ensure that whatever system it is using to verify genuine pensioners does not go the usual way of unending verification exercises.
We say this conscious of the pains that pensioners go through in Nigeria. Ours is one country where literally, it is possible for the proverbial camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for pensioners to receive alerts of payment of their pension. In spite of several pension reforms, it has been all motion and no movement, as most pensioners still rely on the magnanimity of public servants, whether in the Federal Civil Service, or in many of the states, for their pension. As a matter of fact, the few governments that pay pensions promptly are regarded as having done ‘uncommon favour’ because such characteristic is a rarity in our clime.
As a result of irregular payment of pensions, the children of many pensioners have dropped out of school. Many of the pensioners themselves have died of ill-health because they could not afford to pay medical fees. Many have been evicted by their landlords for their inability to pay rent. Not only are our pensioners denied prompt payment of their benefits, they also suffer the double jeopardy of not having access to social welfare unlike their counterparts in many other parts of the world. Many of them have slumped and died on pension queues during unending verification exercises.
However, we must state that even if we agree with the state government that it was pensioners that had been paid who organised the counter-protest against those the state government referred to as “mercenaries”, this was wrong, and two wrongs can never make a right. What moral right do they have to prevent those who have not been paid from protesting? After all, the commissioner himself said some pensioners were yet to be paid. No individual or group can usurp the powers of the police which is the only institution to intervene in the circumstance. That no arrests were made by the police who came to restore law and order leaves the impression that the state’s authorities gave tacit support to the faction that seemed sympathetic to its (government’s) cause.
We urge the state government to honour its promise to pay the remaining pensioners as soon as their verification is concluded while it hands over the issue of the trouble shooters that it has accused of disturbing the peace to the appropriate security agencies for interrogation and possible prosecution.
