STILL ON THE IMO PENSIONERS’ PLIGHT
The
last time I checked, the supposed senior citizens in Imo were
pathetically-looking set of individuals, to assert the least. Yes, they
currently appear not unlike the overused arms and ammunitions during the
Nigerian civil war. Though I wasn’t a living witness to the aforementioned
battle field, history has it that virtually every arm deployed for the combat
was deeply overused owing to insufficiency.
Do you have a pensioner around you? If
you do, please do take a walk towards his or her presence with a view to taking
a painstaking look on his overall posture. Maybe, just a glance at his person
would be enough for you to tender the required commentary. But if peradventure
a look isn’t enough, then I would advise you to transcend to engaging him or
her on a talk. Probably, a speech from him would be more than enough.
But if you don’t have any pensioner
within your territory, please endeavour to search for one. I urge you to make
effort to see at least one because that is the only way you would assent to the
above assertion that reads ‘pathetically-looking set of individuals’. It is
only when you witness something or an event that you can authoritatively report
on how it looked like, or how it went, as the case may be. Hence, it’s not
helpful and wholesome to base our theory on speculations or hearsay.
Since I commence my writing career, I
have ensured that I don’t write or comment based on what I was told; rather, in
accordance with what I verified, or personally learnt. So when I said, our
teeming pensioners were looking so pitiable the last time I met them, I was
speaking in line with what I saw for myself. In fact, the set of people in
question seriously needs to be rescued by the revered Rescue Mission Government
graciously piloted by Governor Rochas Okorocha.
It is indeed mind-boggling to
acknowledge that they willingly entered an agreement with the government
penultimate year with a view to salvaging the lingering untold hardship that
abruptly befell them, yet they are still ravaged by same monster. At the
moment, they unequivocally seem like persons whose intelligences were played on
during the period in review. In order not to go into detail that could be
boring, the said agreement had it that after the sacrifice they were enjoined
to make, which they eventually did, from January 2017 onwards, each of them –
ranging from Grade Level one to infinity – shall be receiving hundred per cent
(100%) of his or her pension.
It would shock you to note that since
January till date, none of them has received a dime, let alone the statutory
pension accruable to him/her. Worse still, the current proposal is that, those
with Grade Level seven and above shall receive only fifty per cent (50%) of
their respective pensions, contrary to the previous pledge, or agreement so to
say. Whilst, those with Grade Level six and below shall receive full payment.
It is not even a proposal, rather the concluded plan of the government, because
there is presently no any arrangement for an extensive talk between the two
parties involved in that regard.
I want to seize this opportunity to
announce solemnly that the situation is becoming intensely unbearable for these
respected individuals. They are ubiquitously addressed as ‘senior citizens’,
but now could best be described as vulnerable. That is the irony of life. This
government is widely reckoned to be a listening government, or one that
operates with a human face; it’s on this backdrop that I call on the revered
governor, to please give the issue the attention it truly deserves. We can’t
continue to claim ignorance of the level of hardship these people are passing
through.
This is the only government that
thought it wise to clear the backlog of pensions it met on board, the moment
the governor assumed office in 2011. In the same vein, I could recall vividly
with passion that some time ago, a pensioner in the state who retired as a
school headmaster once addressed Gov. Okorocha as not just a governor but ‘an
astute administrator’; the eulogy wasn’t unconnected with the measure the
aforesaid political leader was using to ensure that no pensioner in the Eastern
Heartland was owed, not even a Kobo.
So,
we can’t forget in haste that this administration sincerely means well for the
‘senior citizens’. We cannot equally forget in a hurry that all these
hullabaloos were occasioned by the ongoing recessionary era that emerged
unannounced two years ago. We can’t as well deny that the government is making
frantic effort to see that every form of debt is duly cleared. But what we are
confused at is why these persons would receive a certain promise just last
year, but currently, actualization of such a lofty pledge seems far-fetched.
It is on this note I plead with the Rescue
Mission Administration to kindly do the needful. It ought to endeavour to
rescue these individuals that are presently crying foul in every nook and
cranny of the state. As much as I candidly appreciate this government for all
the commendable efforts put in place thus far, I want to equally notify it that
it would be so shameful and unspeakable for the teeming pensioners to remain in
agony when we are celebrating Democracy Day. Think about it!
Comr. FDN Nwaozor
Executive Director,Docfred Resource Clinic - Owerri
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Twitter: @mediambassador
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