The Nation Newspaper

Tag: plight

  • The plight of senior citizens

    SIR:Senior citizens or pensioners are a treasure to any civilized society. They have laboured hard for many years for the development of their countries or fatherland. This group of people depends largely on gratuities and pension from their former employers.

    In some countries, businesses offer customers of a certain age a “senior discount”. The age at which these discounts are available vary between 50, 60, or 65years of age. However, in Nigeria, the “senior citizens” entitlements are sometimes embezzled and at other times unpaid. The ongoing trial of the ex Head of Service of Oyo State, Alhaja Kudirat Adeleke and 15 others for alleged N5.6 billion pension fraud, whatever the outcome, is a pathetic case study.

    Many senior citizens paradoxically are treated with satanic disregard and left to wallow in abject poverty by denying them of their legitimate gratuity and pension allowances. That I suppose is one of the reasons why the country is facing different challenges because the “elders” or “fathers” that ought to bless the nation are indirectly cursing the leaders because of neglect and insensitivity to their plights.

    It is in this regard that I implore the amiable Governor of Oyo State, Senator Abiola Ajimobi and other states of the federation to release the gratuity and backlog of pension allowances of the senior citizen immediately.

     

    • Pastor Adegbite Sunday Oloriire

    Apake, Ogbomoso.

  • EFCC’s financial plight

    EFCC’s financial plight

    •The anti-graft body cannot be famished for funds if we are serious in the campaign against corruption 

    Recent report that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is broke is catastrophic to the touted official battle against graft in the country. More saddening is the fact that the commission has not publicly denied the report. But to imagine that an agency saddled with the responsibility of prosecuting corruption is in dire straits, to an extent in which it could no longer fulfil some of its statutory obligations, is scandalous.

    Firstly, it is reported that the commission owes lawyers handling its briefs, and mostly affected in the body’s professional debt profile are senior lawyers in charge of cases against high-ranking politicians/ suspects arraigned for either involvement in outright pilfering of public till or nauseating money laundering deals.

    Secondly, the commission reportedly no longer has the requisite funds to prosecute its enlightenment Zero Tolerance programme on radio and television stations. The programme was deployed to educate Nigerians about its activities, and more importantly, the evils of corruption in the society. At the moment, the programme was not only suspended, worse is the fact that the EFCC still reportedly owes some stations arrears of aired editions. The publication of EFCC’s in-house magazine barely survived the crunch because of the reported resolute resolve of Ibrahim Lamorde, its chairman, to sustain the paper.

    Under no circumstances should the EFCC be starved of funds. But on the issue of lawyers’ professional fees, a better arrangement ought to have been worked out to bring out the best of the learned men and also reduce the financial strain of the body. Perhaps, the commission should have agreed to the global practice of no-win-no-money with these lawyers, especially in cases where the benefit of the doubt weighs heavily in favour of the commission. After all, most EFCC cases were lost due to negligence by lawyers that were paid millions of naira – to the chagrin of the public.

    Despite its glaring avoidable oversight in this regard, the EFCC remains so strategic a body, which is why its financial predicament should be of concern to all. Sometime early this year, Lamorde bemoaned, in an address before the House of Representatives, the sloppiness in the release of funds to the commission, to wit: “It is important to note that for 2012, we requested N21.8bn from the Budget Office of the Federation out of which only N10.9bn was allocated, representing 51 per cent of our requirement.” He reportedly revealed also that of the N300m and N700m for Legal Services and Staff/Office Equipment Insurance Premium, respectively, for 2012, not a kobo was allocated.

    The above sharply contrasted the position of Leo Ogor, House of Representatives Majority Leader who sounded bewildered about the claim that the commission is broke. According to him: “They came with a budget and we approved it for them. Maybe they are working outside their budget; it is not possible that they are broke…we shall look at their complaints in the next budget if any, to really understand what they are talking about.”

    We are aware of the evolving rude official fiscal tradition in the country whereby some appropriated budgetary funds, for inexplicable reasons, are not released to relevant agencies. The trend has gradually degenerated into an abysmal situation where monthly allocations to states are being paid in arrears of three months and more. This has led to insinuations that not only the EFCC but also Nigeria, is broke. Sadly, the presidency has not given any credible defence on this matter.

    The task of battling corruption that is endangering the institutions of state is one that must be won. And if EFCC is acknowledged to have a significant role to play in that regard, then, it should not be starved of required funding.

  • 3SC’s plight not my fault, says Oyo FA boss

    Chairman, Oyo State Football Association, Leye Adepoju, has denied the allegations levelled against him by some 3SC fans, following the tight spot the Ibadan team finds itself on the Glo Premier League.

    The board member of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) explained his position on a sports programme on radio in Ibadan at the weekend, where he read the remarks of the match commissioner and center referee concerning a week 20 Globacom Premier League match 3SC versus Kwara United.

    The reports, according to Adepoju, were what nailed 3SC before the Organising and Disciplinary Committee (O &D) of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) who slammed three-match closed door bans on the team with their midfielder, Philip Asuquo and Team Manager Ajibade suspended for six matches.

    Adepoju, who was allegedly assaulted by some aggrieved fans after the first home match played behind closed doors at Lekan Salami Sports Complex, said 3SC’s problem is more of an internal one than what most people are seeing outside.

    The legal practitioner, however, urged the team to carry out self-cleansing by fishing out some elements who are working against the interest of the club, but pretending to be its saviour.

    “I was not in the stadium when 3SC clashed with Kwara United. What I got was just the report which was presented by the match commissioner, center referee, and video clips, which highly indicted 3SC.

    “I’m from Oyo State, so it won’t be a thing of joy to me seeing Shooting Stars relegated from Premier League.

    “What I think has to be done is a self examination of the all organs connected with the club and fashion out a way to save the club,” Adepoju said on a radio station in Ibadan.

  • Plight of Imo’s primary school teachers’ pensioners

    SIR: One constituency that got the least mention in the manifestos of political parties that struggled fervently for votes of the electorate in Imo State during the April 2011 polls was the pensioners. Among the pensioners, the retired primary school teachers have been most hit by the seeming insensitivity of successive administrations to them. None in this category of pensioners has received their federal pensions since 2002. The result is that many of them are left with the pittance that they call state pension, some as little as N1,000 a month.

    This is because the state government has failed to harmonize the pensions of those who retired many years back with that of those who retired later on same salary scale but earned bigger amounts of money due to salary adjustments over the years. Harmonization is an exercise which statutorily should be carried out yearly.

    The federal government had carried out this harmonization at a point hence the part of the pensions which it usually contributes to the funds for the retirees increased, giving hope and comfort of the pensioners until the state government threw a spanner in the works. Their trouble began when state governments won a suit against the Obasanjo-led federal government which, at a stage, had decided to pay the retired teachers directly through their banks instead of the state or local governments. The decision was predicated on the fact that state governments diverted the funds, leaving the poor retirees to suffer. Apparently, they had capitalized on their access to the local government funds through their joint accounts.

    The governments might have been unmindful of the atrocity meted out to these frail members of the society who had expended their blood at youth in the service of the nation only to be denied their due by the same children they had nurtured to adulthood as teachers.

    A nation that treats its once productive elderly with scorn and ignominy is only comparable to George Orwell’s Animal Farm which ought to be consigned only to the imaginary world of satire. It is a violation of the tenets of equity and natural justice and the cry of the victims, most certainly, reaches the high heavens.

    The simple demand of these pensioners is that their federal pensions be restored immediately so that they would enjoy their old age and pass on happily.

    One of the pensioners in this class sat down one day and calculated how much the government owed him as federal pensions and the figures he saw stunned him. He simply muttered a prayer, wishing that God may touch the heart of the authorities to, at least, resume payment of the federal pensions to them in no distant time.

    Governor Rochas Okorocha showed some promise in 2011 when he summoned the senior citizens to the Dan Anyiam Stadium, Owerri, where he gave them a treat and actually served them rice and coke. He hugged them and fraternized with them. The camaraderie that existed on that day set them thinking that their days of anguish were over. He pledged to clear the arrears which the Ohakim administration could not pay them.

    Indeed, since he became governor, he has struggled hard to pay the pensioners in good time and is everyday cracking his brain on how best to alleviate the sufferings of these grannies. Part of his plan is to pay them through the newly created community government councils to ease off traveling long distances and avoid racketeering as well. He still needs to find out why these retired primary school teachers are being denied the federal pension and promptly reinstate it. That way, the cycle of his glory in that aspect will be complete and forever he would bask in the blessings of the senior citizens for ending their 11 years of anguish.

    • Richard Dirim Odu

    Owerri, Imo State

  • Kalu and the Igbo plight

    Kalu and the Igbo plight

    It baffles that leaders who had every opportunity to better the lots of their people, but failed to do so would still have the audacity to hoist themselves as true Igbo leaders; this is particularly when those who had done pretty well as leaders to uplift the Igbos remain in the background while working assiduously to do more. Since he left office after eight years as governor of Abia State, Orji Uzor Kalu has been in desperate search for relevance and recognition ahead of 2015 general elections. He has since deployed all strategies including media hypes, rumours and peddling of lies to draw attention to himself.

    Latest of such desperation was the staged outing by his allies in London at the British House of Commons recently. Shorn of his typical penchant to grandstand, Kalu’s speech at the event was as usual lacking in any substance. In the bid to arrogate to himself the true champion of Igbo cause, he merely dragged the Igbos to the mud just as he did not proffer solutions to what he claimed to be the marginalization of the Igbos in Nigeria.

    Here is Kalu’s summary of the plight of the Igbo: “unequal allocation of resources, unequal voice at the Federal Executive Council, unequal representation at the National Assembly, unequal participation in the administration of justice in the federation, unequal participation in the federal civil service and adjunct bodies and unequal representation in the armed forces and para-military organisations.

    He also added; “unequal representation in the diplomatic corps ensuring incapacity in showcasing the Igbo culture as part of a pan-Nigerian culture in our foreign missions and embassies, fewer primary, secondary and higher education opportunities for our children.”. And then he added: “These structural disparities are constitutionally entrenched, thus their grave implications for Ndigbo are beyond the primary questions of inequity and marginalisation.”

    But one question the hired audience and journalists at the event failed to ask was his contributions towards addressing the plight of Igbos, while in office as executive governor of Abia for eight years, and what is he doing now also to tackle the problem. They did not ask Kalu on what capacity he was addressing Igbo plights in Nigeria, since after he left office as governor, he has not attended any meeting convened by the Igbo socio-cultural organization Ohanaeze Ndigbo or Igbo stakeholders where issues affecting Igbo interest are being discussed.

    So how can he be on the fringe and pontificate on the plights of Igbos instead of presenting such to National Assembly members as they are in process of amending the constitution? Igbos have not forgotten in a hurry his role in scuttling of Chief Alex Ekwueme’s presidential ambition in 1999 and 2003 in collaboration with his ex-military godfathers from the North on whose back Kalu rode to limelight. People of Abia will also not forget how he left the state indebted, destabilized and underdeveloped after controlling their collective resources for eight years during which he arm-twisted the management of the state university to issue him a degree certificate he did not merit.

    Kalu’s greatest problem is that he talks too much and in the end contradicts himself. He believes he knows more than any other person. When he accused the security agents of being responsible for the spate of bombing and was taken on by the Minister of Information Labaran Maku, Kalu, he went on a laboured defence without facts and figures and without a shred of evidence.

    His position and action in the past and present has not helped him to talk of Igbo cause, rather it has worsened it. The Njiko Igbo platform which he now uses and claimed to have formed to advance Igbo interest in Nigeria was originally formed by Alhaji Yahaya Ndu, the younger of brother Senator Ben Collins Ndu in 1983 at Enugu and was formally inaugurated on April 20, 1989 in a ceremony witnessed by many prominent and regular Igbos from all walks of life. Kalu was never a member of the group, even when he became governor of Abia State in 1999, he never identified with or supported the group at any point in time. Prominent Igbos who know about the group including Yahaya Ndu are alive and are quietly watching Kalu and his antics that will take him nowhere.

    If Kalu is a good student of history as he would want people to believe, he should know that the Igbos have been the beneficiary of no less than 35% of federal appointments made by the Jonathan administration and his state Abia has also benefitted a lot courtesy of the cordial relationship between the state government and federal government, a situation that was not obtainable throughout Kalu’s eight years of governance. Offices held by Igbos in the present government include those of the deputy senate president, the deputy speaker of the House of Representatives, Secretary to the Government of the Federation, finance minister, as well as the chief economic adviser to the president. Others include the special adviser on project monitoring, the special adviser on the subsidy re-investment and empowerment programme, Chief of Army Staff, the executive vice chairman of the National Communications Commission, managing director of the Asset Management Company of Nigeria, managing director of the Nigeria Sovereign Wealth Fund and the Ministers of Power, Labour, Aviation and Health.

    Other high-ranking Igbo officials serving in the present government include the chairman of the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission, the director-general of the Bureau for Public Procurement, the director-general of the Debt Management Office, the director-general of the Securities Exchange Commission, the Special Adviser on the National Assembly and the head of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission. Igbos got a number of strategic ambassadorial postings, including the heads of the missions in Canada, the United Nations, India, Switzerland, Spain and Singapore.

    So what is Kalu trying to achieve by his belated pontification and gospel on the plight of Igbos in Nigeria? He is not and has never been the right person to speak on the plight of Igbos because when the opportunity was there for him to act in Igbo interest, he failed to so. Kalu should better concentrate on his acclaimed business empires to expand them and create jobs for teeming Igbo youths if he truly loves the Igbos. But the problem is that we are yet to see the business empires anywhere in the country talk less of Igbo land.

    • Dr. Omeneogor writes from Toronto, Canada.

  • Plight of Enugu’s newly recruited teachers

    Plight of Enugu’s newly recruited teachers

    SIR: There was loud ovation in Enugu State when in January 2012, new teachers were recruited to join the state civil service to bridge the gap in the shortage of manpower in most government owned secondary schools. The successful candidates recruited after rigorous processes of written and oral interviews couldn’t thank their creator enough.

    The scramble for the job dislocated many families. Some qualified jobless housewives who succeeded in the recruitment had to abandon their families from different parts of the country and relocated to their place of posting in different remote areas of Enugu State. Some others residing in neighboring states like Anambra and Imo at the greatest risk of their lives, shuttle daily from their base to different schools where they teach in Enugu.

    They go to work with much enthusiasm not only to impact on their students but also banking on the hope that their monthly salary will henceforth cushion the effect of their heavy spending on transport and other logistics.

    But painfully the countdown began. January, February, March to December no sign. To give them false hopes, sometimes, they will be called to Enugu for verification, computerization and other jargons making the teachers whet their appetite that something is in the offing.

    The situation became so bad that for 13 months the new teachers never received a dime as salary. Frustration gave way to anger and despondency while Christmas for them was not only a sad reminder of a failed system but a moment of regret.

    Suddenly, news began to fly that they are not being paid because the governor is sick and has traveled abroad for treatment. That Chime has left instruction that his deputy should not sign any cheque above N500,000. Some also alleged that the money for the new teacher’s salary was stashed away in the ministry as a fixed deposit in a bank while some powerful people are eating from the accruing interest. The situation has led to the return of the old and outdated aphorism that teachers reward will be in heaven.

    The real question now is whether government had genuine intentions to employ the teachers at the first instance or was it a political gimmick? If the intentions were genuine, why then owe people for one year and expect such people to work and still survive?

    During the Christmas season, some of the new teachers received bank alerts of one month salary out of the 13 months owed while some didn’t receive at all.

    What is happening in Enugu state is a national embarrassment, a misnomer and an aberration. Where are the men of conscience? What of the influential people in the society, the church, civil society groups and other leaders of thought?

    Now that it has been confirmed that Governor Chime is alive while the Acting Governor, Sunday Onyebuchi has also voiced out that Chime properly handed over to him, I think there is no need playing games with people’s misery. Paying the teachers will be one step for us to believe for real that Enugu is working.

    • Patrick Chiejina

    Awka , Anambra state

  • Oyo women address plight at seminar

    THe Speaker, Oyo State House of Assembly, Alhaja Monsurat Sunmonu, has given women in the state the opportunity to speak on their challenges.

    The legislator organised an interactive forum for the women in all the 20 wards of both Oyo-East and Oyo-West local government areas.

    At the occasion held at the Durbar Stadium in Oyo town, women spoke one after the other on how they have been marginalised, neglected and persecuted in decision-making as well as in development.

    While eulogising Sunmonu for her concerted efforts in empowering and improving the status of women, they lamented some retrogressive forces said to be working against them.

    They told the Speaker: “We know your untiring commitment towards improving socio-economic status of women, but all these efforts are being thwarted and hijacked by those opposed to our well-being.

    “We need your support and assistance in order to cope with the biting economic situation in the country. We no longer want to be sidelined, discriminated or excluded in the scheme of things. It is our inalienable rights and must be given to us.”

    Responding, Hon. Sunmonu noted that women have continued to display great dynamism throughout the difficult period in the state. She said that they have displayed ingenuity and creativity in finding answers to any situation, individually at the household level, and collectively at the social level, thereby creating a conducive atmosphere for democracy and democratic governance to thrive.

    “They constitute a dynamic breeding ground within the framework of any perspective for change. The issue of women empowerment has become a matter of concern in the world, and particularly for the present administration in Oyo State. Considering their indispensable role in the society as mothers, custodians, and shapers of the society, the Ajimobi–led administration is of the conviction that empowering women is empowering the nation.”

    The Speaker assured the women that any activity that can improve their economic power would be encouraged, and that government would also encourage them to develop confidence in themselves, through exhibiting their potentials.

    Mrs. Sunmonu spoke further: “The woman exists for herself as well as for others. The seriously responsible duties she is called upon to perform in life require a cultivated head, as well as a sympathizing heart. Consequently, government would continue to provide an enabling environment for women, as well as intensify awareness campaigns among the rural dwellers for meaningful participation in the development process. This will go a long way in ensuring a bright and stable future.”

    The Speaker later donated 40 bags of rice to the women.