By Josef Omorotionmwan
THE same spirit that propelled “the weeping prophet”, Jeremiah, to write the book of Lamentations at the destruction of Jerusalem by Babylon, with her people killed, tortured or taken captive, is more than enough to make us reside permanently in lamentation for today’s world that is filled with injustice, poverty, crime, war and all forms of rebellion.

But there comes a time when we must take a break from lamentation and dwell briefly on the Song of Solomon. Just when you are beginning to think that all hope is lost, something still happens to keep hope alive. When we talk of “Lagos for show” and shout, “Eko ‘ni baje”, we simply mean that Lagos should remain alive to show the way for others to follow.

From the smallest things, the greatest often grow. A quiet revolution is creeping into the administration of Lagos State where authorities have realised that in any organisation, the welfare of the staff is paramount; hence it has come up with a new maternity and paternity leave regime for its workers.

Under the new leave regime, female civil servants shall now be entitled to six months maternity leave, with full pay, for each of their first two deliveries while for all subsequent births, they shall revert to the usual three months maternity leave. The leave shall commence at least two weeks before her expected date of delivery.

For the first time, it is being realised that it takes two to tango, hence: “A male officer to whom a new baby (or babies in case of multiple births) is born shall be entitled to 10 days paternity leave”.

Again, even within Lagos State, what is good for civil servants should be good for all public servants as well as private sector employees. The motive behind this innovation is quite laudable: “The new leave regime is meant to reduce the negative implication of the extensive work life of parents who are civil servants in the State”.

All the same, what is good for Lagos State should also be good for other states and the Federal Government. Accordingly, the measure is recommended to these levels.

Shall we now return to lamentation? Meanwhile, our Federal legislators are busy making laws that are clearly un-implementable. On Tuesday, July 1, 2014, President Goodluck Jonathan signed the Pension Reform Bill 2014 into law. According to the new Pension Reform Act: “Anyone who misappropriates pension funds, among other punishments, will spend 10 years behind bars. Anyone found guilty will also be made to refund three times the amount embezzled by him or her”.

We have come to realise that every segment in life has its peculiar language. In our child psychology class, we were taught that the only disciplinary language that children understand is that of flogging. Hence, a father would tell his child: “If you fall into the railway line and get crushed by the train, I will flog you mercilessly”. The child would then maintain because he doesn’t want to be flogged, albeit after he has been crushed to death?

You could talk from now till tomorrow but the only thing that appeals to the taxi driver is: “See passenger make you carry”. Similarly, we find a lot of truth in the saying that statesmen think of the next generation while politicians think of the next election. That explains why, like the taxi driver, the only language that appeals to the politician is the one that translates into votes.

As for the employer, the only language he understands from the employee is about strike and withdrawal of service. This column has maintained, perhaps with monotonous regularity, that this explains why pension funds have suddenly become the easiest money to steal.

To the system, the pensioner is a dead man. First, he has no service to withdraw; and second, he is already too feeble to go on strike, any way. So people can afford to loot his money while he dies on the pension queue and nothing happens.

The future begins today. To the extent that today’s workers are tomorrow’s retirees, they cannot remain nonchalant while these old men and women die on pension queues like poisoned rats. After all, sooner than later, they too will become retirees.

This is why we have recommended that our labour unions should take active interest in the affairs of these old men and women who cannot fend for themselves. Their interest should be deep enough that, as happens when workers are owed salaries, they should also call their members out on strike when the old ones are owed pension arrears.

In all this, we hope the National Assembly is listening. In order not to complicate the issue at hand, we intend to call only one witness: Alhaji Abdulrasheed Abdulahi Maina, who was the acting Director of Customs, Immigration, and Prison Pension Office when the National Assembly smelt a rat that all was not well with close to N200 billion in his care.

He was invited to the National Assembly to shed light on this. When he failed to appear, a warrant of arrest was issued from the Senate but the Inspector General of Police was reluctant to execute the warrant. The executive branch of government dilly-dallied on the issue until Alhaji vamoosed from Nigeria!

Juxtapose this with the new amendment to the Pension Act and you will find a very good example of a very bad law: a Senate that was shamelessly unable to get Maina to come and answer a few questions on N200 billion is now shamelessly recommending that we throw Maina into prison for ten years before we get him to refund N600 billion! This is perhaps the adult equivalent of the child who must avoid flogging after being crushed to death! Put differently, a child killed a small rat but had no fire to roast it. Meanwhile, he is shouting that the big rat must not be allowed to escape.

What unending theatre of the absurd!