Helen Ovbiagele, Woman Editor
Helen, I’m away from Lagos and at my daughter’s place in Epe. I don’t know when I’ll be back to my house.” When I received this text some days ago from a former classmate who’s a federal government retiree, I was a bit agitated.

Going to spend some time with her daughter and family, now and again, is normal, but saying that she didn’t know when she would be back in her own place was strange because she’s always been a fiercely independent well organized lady.

Not being able to get her on her telephone for several days because of network problems heightened my anxiety; especially when she didn’t respond to the message I sent to her wanting to know if all was well with her.

It was a relief when she finally got in touch.

“Are you alright? It’s unlike you to go on a visit and then say that you don’t know when you’ll be back to your own place. Besides, there was some tone of distress in your text. Are you well?”

“It was a near thing but I’m coming out of it gradually now, thank God.”

“What happened?”

“This year’s ‘pensioners verification exercise’ almost caused a breakdown. It really took a toll on my health. It was not widely publicized in the media, so, I didn’t get to know of it early. Not that I was late, anyway. I understand it appeared in one of the national dailies, but it wasn’t the one I normally take.

However, I set off from my house at seven in the morning to the venue of the exercise at Federal Civil Service Club on Awolowo Road, Ikoyi. Days were assigned to salary grade levels. Luckily, I went on the day for my grade level, but that wasn’t too much help in the end because the exercise had not started on the stipulated date, so there was a backlog. You just keep going until you get attention. The whole exercise is so tedious. I was attended to on my fifth attempt!

On one of the days, I got dizzy and had to go sit under a tree, get some satchets of iced water and poured on my head. I had to return home at once, of course. Commuting there on those days were hard on my body, not to mention the anxiety of whether you would be attended to on time and could return home before dark.

When you finally get the first attention, you show some documents pertaining to your employment and time in service, and then you’re given a form to fill and submit with the relevant documents. After submission you wait around to be called to go sit in the main courtyard and wait to be called to face the verification machine and officer. This is another long wait, and the process a bit untidy.

The officer calls out your name, and before you respond, several names have been called and whoever comes forward first is attended to. Since we weren’t made so sit according to how the forms were submitted, there was a bit of confusion. I would have been attended to on my fourth attempt, but when it was five o’clock and there were just about eight of us left, the officers told us they couldn’t go on and that it was getting dark.

We begged and begged, but to no avail. We asked to be given numbers so that we could be attended to first the next day, they refused too.

I had to wake up very early in order to get there early. Even then, there were already twelve people ahead of me. I had to wait for my turn.

A lady who had been with us in the early days, later surfaced with an arm in a sling. What happened? She said she lives outside Lagos, and so she didn’t return home, but spent the night with relatives at Orile-Iganmu so could come early and could travel home that day. On her way to catch an early morning bus, she fell into a gutter that has been covered with flood water, and cracked a bone. I haven’t head yet that anyone died this year, but I have seen several elderly persons take ill at the venue. I was lucky that my body held until I had been attended to.

I was trying to recover from the physical stress when a small attack of malaria triggered off a near collapse of the entire system. My doctor and my daughter advised a total getaway for me to recuperate after my treatment. I’m okay now. I thank God.”

My friend retired from the civil service very early many yeas ago, so that she could set up a business, and even though she can’t be categorized as elderly strictly yet, but old or young, our pensioners deserve to be treated with dignity. Why this annual ‘I’m alive” exercise?’

Having been in the civil service system herself, my friend explained why it is necessary. This issue of ghost workers is real, she told me. “Deaths of some pensioners may not be reported and some relatives could scheme to collect the monthly pension. Even where the relatives of the pensioners go to report that he/she has passed on, the deceased could still be on the salary list, with the money being drawn by some insiders.

Pensioners may not get their pay regularly because their money may have been put in a special account with the intention of collecting hefty interests for a period before the money is released, if the pensioners cry out, etc. These pensioners-related problems are not peculiar to Nigeria only. It’s world-wide, even in the so-called developed countries.

What we need to do here is to make the verification exercise a lot easier and more comfortable for our pensioners. That said, I must say that this year’s exercise is better than in previous years, particularly 2006, where it was reported that six pensioners died.

This is because they now verify by grade levels, and that has brought in some sanity and order. Also, because the exercise has been contracted out, pensioners can be attended to on public holidays and Sundays, and beyond the normal hours of civil servants.

Federal government pensioners in other states outside Lagos, may not be having the same problems because they are fewer in number, and they are informed when the verification officer would be coming to their state capitals, so they can present themselves for the exercise.”

Although I appreciate my friend’s very fair account of the verification exercise, I still think the government can do a lot to remove the pains our pensioners go through, particularly in the big cities like Lagos where there’s a large presence of federal government retirees.

In some western countries, verification is done through the post office or the banks they use in their areas. This is very convenient for the pensioners as they don’t have to commute long distances and wait in long queues.

By the way, I hope pensions will be adjusted to comply with the minimum wage, particularly those that retired on a lowly income. I heard of a pensioner whose monthly allowance is almost ten thousand naira! What sort of pension is that? How can anyone live on that?

People who have served the nation through the civil service should be well-looked after by the government in the twilight of their days.