| Workers & the Pension
question
By ENEPIA ODEY
Sunday, July 25, 2004
When recently President Olusegun Obasanjo signed into law
the Contributor Pension Act, the Minister of Labour and Productivity,
Dr. Hassan Lawal, made the comment that many Nigerians may
not have taken seriously.
He told the nation that Nigerians may not appreciate some
of the reforms the Obasanjo administration has embarked upon
but that many of the reforms will bear fruits for which future
generation of Nigerians will enjoy.
For some of many countrymen who are currently bearing the
inevitable pains of some of the reform programmes, the minister’s
remark may sound infuriating but he was telling the truth.
For President Obasanjo has taken it upon himself not to merely
provide cosmetic solutios to some of Nigeria’s fundamental
problems, but to radically address them so that the foundation
of the country will be created on a solid structure.
Take, for example, the issue of pension which has become a
major reproach upon the nation. The inability of successive
administrations in recent times to pay pension to retired
public officials, was not the creation of Obasanjo.
The neglect over the years to establish and competently and
honestly manage a pension scheme, has led to the very embarrassing
situation in which some retirees cannot get their monthly
stipend. Some of them collapse and die while on the queue
for their paltry due.
Retired soldiers blackmailed this administration so much that
if Obasanjo were a man that easily quakes or yields in to
threat and blackmail, he would have had to do something insensible
in order to satisfy the ex-servicemen; something which would
invariably have hurt the nation. For the truth is that pension
money was not just there to pay those who are due.
Nigerians must thank God for giving a man of courage like
Obasanjo to them at this point in time when so many things
have gone wrong and they need to be correctly fixed.
Being a man of enormous courage, Obasanjo elected not just
to merely accede to the yearnings of retirees, but to evolve
a pension scheme that will address the whole pension matter
without much pains for both the government and retired officers.
This is what has given birth to the contributory pension scheme
which he just signed into law. This new scheme is superior
to the old one in the fact that the employee will set aside
for himself a certain amount of his monthly salary. His employer
is also required by the law to contribute his own portion
to match what the employee has decided to set aside.
With this, it is certain that when the time comes, the retiree
will have something to fall on to rather than in the old scheme
when he relied on the hope that government will have the good
sense to lay aside something for him, a hope which was not
readily met and which led to the trauma which retirees suffered.
The new scheme provides that the self-employed can also join
in insuring their future. The government is not only concerned
about the present and future well-being of its citizens in
the public sector, it is also anxious that even those in the
informal private sector should take step to be in the social
safety net.
This is not some small revolution in departure from the old
illusion that government is a Father Christmas that has an
exhaustible store of wealth to cater for virtually every problem
in the land.
The new initiative is anchored on the cold reality that government
alone cannot be relied upon to cater for its senior citizens.
It is based on the realistic calculation that to make any
far-reaching, pro-people policy such as a pension scheme work,
there must be a strong partnership between the government
and the people. The people must be made to contribute their
quota to determining their destiny.
•Odey is based in Abuja
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