ASABA — FIVE aged ex-military pensioners collapsed and died at the Oshimili South local government arcade while waiting to be screened by the visiting Verification Committee from the ministry of Defence Headquarters who were in the state to carry out the exercise.
Retired military men in Delta state were asked to converge at the arcade since last Monday to face the screening committee and in compliance the ex-service men who were being owned arrears thronged to Asaba. First on arrival they were faced with accommodation problem as many of them who came from different local government areas of the state had to sleep in the open field at the mercy of the vagries of the cold harmattan, while others slept at any available corner in a nearby St. Joseph’s Catholic Church.
Vanguard gathered that those that unfortunately collpased and gave up the ghost before medical assistance could come belong to the cateogories of those suffering from one sickness or the other, while some due to suffocation as well as old age induced illness as some of them were over 60 and 70.
Also, one of the ex-servicemen was reported missing. According to the reports, the missing man, a Lance Corporal had excused himself from his mates last Thursday’s evening to urinate but did not come back.
Contacted, the Delta state chairman of the Nigerian Legion, Lt. Col. Bebeteidoh Luckie confirmed the death of one of the ex-servicemen but denied knowledge of the rest four saying that "the one death I know about has been deposited at the Federal Medical hospital Asaba mortuary".
Investigation showed that most of the ex-servicemen could not be screened before the exercise was rounded up on Saturday. On Saturday morning many of them who had slept at the premises of the New Nigeria Bank Asaba on Dennis Osadebay Way were sighted at 10am scrambling at the gate to cash their cheques after the screening.
Meanwhile, the state governor Chief James Ibori has called on the Federal Government to critically look at the plight of the military pensioners with a view to finding lasting solution to it instead of subjecting them to all sorts of rigorous and inhuman treatment.
Speaking when the visiting Verification Committee from the Ministry of Defence led by Commander P.F. Ihanden paid him a courtesy call in Asaba weekend.
According to the governor who was represented by the state commissioner for Inter Ethinic Relations Mr. Ovuozourie Macaulay "pensioners spend their lives serving the people and it therefore behoves the military to take care of them. Every opportunity we have to redress this anomaly should be used to do it. It is something that should be of serious concern to all of us", he stated.
