Retirees in Abia state have been left to live in penury and squalor after giving their best years in service to the people and the state government. In this report, VINCENT UFUOMA chronicles their poor and harrowing conditions.

WHEN Dickson Onyemeta retired as a level 6 officer from the Abia State civil service in the Ministry of Agriculture in 2006, his plan was to set up a commercial poultry farm with the hope that gains from the farm would be used to take care of himself and his family of seven children.

However, when The ICIR spoke to him on January 2023, Onyemeta said he could only boast of 12 birds he keeps in a cage.

The 70-year-old man blamed the refusal of the state government to pay his then N460,000 gratuity for his inability to set up the farm.

In addition to the irregular payment of his N18,000 monthly pension, the elderly man said feeding and catering for his family had become a nightmare he had never anticipated when he left the service of the state in 2006.

“Look at me; I am a family man who still has children to train even at 70 because I married very late. But I cannot discharge my responsibility as a father due to financial hardship,” he said disappointedly.

“I left the state civil service in 2006 to leverage my experience in the Ministry of Agriculture to set up a commercial poultry farm that would take care of my needs and my immediate family.

“But my dream was shattered due to the refusal of the state government to pay me my gratuity. My gratuity, which was N400,000, was a huge amount of money when I retired more than 15 years ago. All I have right now is a memory of disappointment.”

“We are suffering!” he exclaimed, while adding that “retirees are suffering, Abia State government is not treating us well.”

He said he now depends on the goodwill of extended family and friends to feed at least once daily.

When asked how he treats his chronic arthritis, Onyemeta said he relies on prayers.

“I believe in prayers. I attend a white garment church, and I believe God will heal me,” he answered.

Like Onyemeta, many retirees interviewed by The ICIR in Abia state share testimonies of disappointments, despairs, hopelessness and anger they have all gone through, especially in the past seven years, in the face of withheld gratuities and irregular pensions payment spanning more than 40 months.

A copy of the state civil service rules sighted by The ICIR entitles workers who have served the state meritoriously for more than 15 years to gratuities and pensions upon retirement.

It reads in part, “Officers who have served for 15 years will be eligible to draw a gratuity of 100 per cent, and an annual pension of 30 per cent of the terminal salary. Thereafter gratuity will be calculated on a graduated scale up to 300 per cent of terminal salary after 35 years.

“Similarly, pension benefits will follow a graduated scale subject to a maximum of 70 per cent of terminal salary after 35 years of service.”

However, findings by The ICIR show that the state has not kept faith with its retired civil servants. The last gratuity was paid in 2002 by the then administration of Orji Uzor Kalu, who is now the Chief Whip of the Senate.

Gratuity by connection
The ICIR met Nwaeze Nnaji, who said his gratuity, which was close to a million naira, was paid in 2006 because of his privileged relationship with Theodore Ahamefule Orji, the then Chief of Staff to Kalu.

He retired from the service of the state in 2003. He said that many of his colleagues who retired alongside him but had no access to higher government officials like him have been unable to access their gratuities until now.

“I retired in 2003, but my gratuity was paid in 2006 after a series of struggles and intervention by TA Orji, who was then Chief of Staff. He gave me a letter to the former Abia State Accountant-General, who in turn effected the payment of my gratuity.”

His only concern now is the irregular payment of his monthly pension. Nnaji, who used to be a Garri trader shortly after retirement but has now stopped due to the downturn in the trade, lamented the pains of feeding himself, his wife and his daughter, a university graduate who has not been able to secure a job.

READ MORE HERE: https://www.icirnigeria.org/pension-series-abia-retirees-battle-poverty-over-non-payment-of-pension-gratuity/

Their people will not talk about this now but like to poke nose to what is happening in another region

Why suffering these people after they have served the state for like 35 years and to pay their pension becomes a problem.

How do you want them to live and survive.

Alex Otti to the rescue

Labour party healing lives and solving problems since 1906