IF only Pa Amiola Sunday, a 64-year-old retired primary school headmaster, had foreseen the indignity waiting for him at the end of his career, he probably would have rejected the offer of employment given to him on the 1st of September 1981 by Oyo State Universal Basic Education Board.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQ2Hc-5qta4

When The ICIR visited him at his rented single-room apartment around Fateema area of Ikire (Irewole local government), he was seen seated on a bug-infested tattered mattress, looking through his window as if expecting a message.

But he was sightless.

Pa Amiola Sunday became blind after years of inability to pay medical bills to treat his defective eyes.

In 2015, a year after Amiola’s retirement, he was diagnosed with Glaucoma and other health challenges.

He would later expend his savings on the payment of medical bills, and when that was not enough, he sold his six-room bungalow built around the Osun State University, Ikire Campus, and six motorcycles in order to offset his medical bills.

But all this was inadequate to save him from deteriorating health.

In fact, he was ejected from Government Specialist hospital, Ibadan, Oyo state, where he is currently owing N5,000.

Yet, his failed sight is just one out of other medical challenges he battles.

In May 2017, Amiola’s wife left home one fateful afternoon without returning. Two years later, his four children also left the house without any note of their whereabouts.

“People now donate food items for me. As you can see, someone just came to give me gaari. I can spend four to five days without eating. Our pastor comes to give me money. Our landlady also does give me money. This is the 4th year I have not paid for rent. They are no more collecting rent from me when they see my present condition with the notion that I repay whenever we are paid our entitlement. I can’t see,” Amiola told this reporter.

Before the Covid-19 lockdown, Pa Amiola had resorted to begging for alms on the roads with a 9-year old boy taking him around the town of Ikire. Most times, he goes to schools to beg from students and visits churches and mosques on worship days.

According to him, his situation may not have become worse if the then government of the state led by Rauf Aregbesola paid his seven months modulated salary arrears, gratuity and monthly pension.

For four years, the old man and many other retirees have been left stranded without payment, a total violation of section 210 of the Nigerian Constitution subsection 2, which states that any benefit to which a person is entitled shall not be withheld or altered to his disadvantage.

Pa Amiola’s case is just one of many of Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) beneficiaries in the state who now wallow in abject poverty after long years of service.

On the 1st of July 2015, Rauf Aregbesola, the immediate past governor of Osun State and the current Minister of Interior, introduced a new system of salary structure to the state due to the economy crisis caused by the global fall in the price of oil.

The salary structure popularly called “half salary” in the state was described in a post on the state’s website as the payment of “full salary to Workers in Grade Levels (GL) 1-7 and at least half or more to those on levels from 8 and above”.

The system which was sustained in the state till the 1st of July 2018 had wrecked most retired civil servants in the state.

Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) is housed in the Pension Reform Act 2004 which repealed the 1993 Nigerian social Insurance Trust Fund Act.

CPS was enacted in 2004 partly as a result of the failure of the past scheme to address the pension needs of Nigerians and partly as a result of the quest by Stakeholders to evolve a scheme that can cater to both public and private sector employees.

Olagunsoye Oyinlola, Osun State former Governor, gave assent to the establishment of the CPS for employees in the public service of Osun State and for other connected purposes on August 3, 2009. The law is the state’s domesticated version of the Pension Reform Act 2004 at the federal level and is referred to as Osun State Contributory Pension Law 2008.

READ MORE HERE: https://www.icirnigeria.org/on-their-own-how-osun-retirees-are-denied-of-their-salaries-and-pensions/

And Tinubu their brother is in Lagos chopping money