To demonstrate care and commitment to pensioners’ plight under the old Defined Benefits Pension Scheme (DBS), the Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD) has embarked on verification in the Southwest, visiting the elderly in their homes and the infirm in hospitals, Omobola Tolu-Kusimo reports.
For many years, pensioners have suffered neglect from those appointed by the government to attend to their benefits. Most of them have not been paid their entitlements years after retirement.
The Nigeria Union of Pensioners (NUP), has also not done much to ameliorate their plight. This was the picture of pensioners under the old pension system, the Pay As You Go (PAYD) or Defined Benefit Scheme (DBS).
A gardener, Kamaru Olowojere, who retired from the Federal Ministry of Works about 11 years ago, abandoned by his family, turned a beggar, asking for alms at Costain bus stop, Lagos. The blind man, who has been down with tuberculosis, found shelter in a primary school where he slept on the bare floor.
Disturbed by Pa Olowojere ‘s plight, a concerned citizen and pensioner, Comrade David Adodo, picked the blind man from the bus stop and took him to a television station for the world to see how pensioners like him are faring.
Adodo, who identified himself as Chairman, Concerned Pensioners in Nigeria, said he shed tears and could not bear leaving Olowojere in the condition he met him.
Help, according to Adodo, later came for Olowojere through a donation by an oil firm and the old blind man secured accommodation, got medical assistance, and could feed himself and change his clothes.
Olowojere is not alone in this utter neglect. Some civil war (1967 and 1970), veterans,who retired in 2004, have also not been paid their pension entitlements for more than 10 years after serving their fatherland meritoriously.
The majority of those affected are soldiers, who were seconded to the Nigeria Police Force. One of them, 60-year-old Abu Ekundayo, said he has not been paid his retirement benefits for more than eight years since retiring. He served the Nigeria Army and the Police Force for 27 years, leaving the police as an Inspector.
Recounting his ordeal to The Nation, he said: “I was receiving salary regularly until I retired in 2006, but I have not received my pension since I retired. I was suffering and partially blind with no money to eat or go to hospital. I was living a miserable life.
“Sometime ago, when I visited the pension office, which was in Lagos as at that time, with some other retirees who have the same case, a fellow police officer, who works in the pension office, said he could help us facilitate the release of our benefits if we give him some money. He collected N50,000 from me and N25,000 from another retiree. While we were waiting for him to help us, we didn’t know when he left the pension office and his phone number never went through afterwards and we could not trace him again.
“In 2011, when a friend and a fellow retiree, who had the same issue with me, went to the police pension office in Abuja, he said they (pension office) confirmed to him that they saw my name in the list of pending pensioners. Usually what happens is for Lagos Command to compile our files and send them to the pension office for payment. Under normal procedure, it should not take more than a year for them to pay. Some people, who are well connected, have received their own pension,” he added.
Another retiree, Richard Ogundare, an Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP), retired 10 years ago and has not been paid his retirement benefit also.
But since the Pension Reform Act (PRA), 2004 as repealed by PRA 2014, which established Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD)took off, a new dawn has come for many like Olowojero, Ekundayo and Ogundare. They are now being enrolled into the pension pay system, paid all benefits and receiving monthly pension.
Olowojere, who got paid four months ago by the PTAD had lost his documents and could not remember where his bank was due to his blindness. But the directorate said it went all out to search for his bank and other details from the Federal Government, his employer.
Last week, PTAD Executive Secretary, Mrs Sharon Ikeazor in a bid to right the wrongs previously done to pensioners, embarked on a tour of the southwest zone of the country to carry out mobile verification for the feeble and the elderly pensioners, who retired from various parastatals of the Federal Government under the old pension scheme.
Starting from Ibadan, Oyo State capital, to Abeokuta, Ogun State and Osogbo, Osun State, she, with some of her members of staff, visited the pensioners and carried out the verification process which was witnessed by The Nation. Olowojere, who resides in Abeokuta, was one of those she visited.
She also visited a pensioner, Mr Adebowale, who was receiving treatment at the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan and carried out mobile verification exercise on him.
Speaking with reporters at Olowojero’s home, Mrs Ikeazor said she decided to visit the pensioners to show them love and the government’s commitment to their welfare.
She said the PTAD is working to fulfill President Muhammadu Buhari’s mandate that all pensioners must get their benefits and be treated with dignity and respect.
She said her tour to the zone has kept all PTAD staff on their toes. “They have been working tirelessly to make sure all pensioners that come out for the exercise are verified, while I join those going for mobile verifications,” she said.
Speaking on Olowojere’s case, she said the matter was brought to her attention through the television broadcast, stressing that the Directorate acted immediately by verifying his document, paid his benefit and put him on the payroll. “He has started receiving monthly pensions,” she said, urging the pensioners’ union to bring cases like Olowojere’s and others to government’s attention.
“Many wonder how we have been able to maintain this new face of pension administration. It is just by making sure things work, by engaging and keeping a check on the staff. I have been to Abeokuta, I went to Ibadan and headed back to Abeokuta the next day. I am also going to Osogbo. I also want to visit a 103-year-old pensioner in Ijebu-Ode to verify him. I believe that the staff have seen the way I am moving with them and they are motivated.
“I made them to understand that we have to maintain the tempo. What we are doing is not just a job to us, but a passion to take care of our parents and the older ones. I used to tell them that when they look at a file on their table, they should not look at it as nothing, but see the file as a human being and that every hour they delay, they are delaying someone from getting his benefit.
“The Directorate is being restructured to be able to run on its own. This is why we have been securing a data base scheme through the ongoing verification. Once we are able to meet the current data base, we can easily plan and talk about whom we are paying and advise the governor properly. We have put many pensioners on the payroll and paid arrears.
“There is a case of 24 years’ retiree who had never collected his pension. He came to us and we verified him. We paid him the 24 years’ arrears and the man was over the moon. We discovered many pensioners with such cases because of the maladministration in the past. Some didn’t even bother to go through the process of claiming their pension. But now that PTAD is working they are all coming back to claim their pensions. So, it has been very interesting,” she said.
She spoke of another case of a pensioner in Niger State whose pension was stopped for many years. “We went to verify him and two weeks after we paid him, he died.”
She continued: “If for instance, we verify a pensioner today and he dies the following day before we pay him, we will calculate his death benefit and any other arrears, pay it to his family and then take him off the pay roll.”
Reacting to the ongoing exercise by the directorate, Adodo said he was unhappy with the NUP because the union seemed not interested in the welfare of its members.
“When I found Olowojere in the condition I met him, I called on the NUP and told them that he required N1.5 million to get medical care. At the end, they gave him N5000.
“Olowojere’s eyes were infected while he worked as a gardener with the Federal Government. When he retired, he used to come to our meetings and complained to me that the eyes were always itching him.
“The man has no wife, no child, no family. So, he used to come hoping that the government would pay. I used to give him money weekly for treatment. All of sudden I didn’t see him again. But one day I was walking through Costain and I saw him begging for money.
“I called a television station and they helped to feature him. The PTAD came immediately to verify him. Unfortunately, he did not know where his bank was because he had become blind and he didn’t know how to trace his document. But PTAD traced his bank and all his document for him. They did a wonderful job,” Adodo said.
A pensioner at the verification centre in Abeokuta, Mr. lbijola Olalekan hailed the exercise and described it as peaceful. “I retired from the Nigerian Postal Service and I am receiving my pension regularly. PTAD staff treated us well and they even gave us food. The verification process is fast. President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration is a responsible one because of the way the exercise is going, unlike what we had in the past when the other government felt less concerned about pensioners. So we thank the President and the Executive Secretary,” Mr Olalekan said.
Also in Ibadan, another pensioner lauded the Directorate, noting that it is good to have a woman at the helms of affairs of a sensitive organ of government like PTAD.
He however called on the Directorate to speed up their operations and quickly pay all verified pensioners their benefits.