By JOSEPHINE IGBINOVIA

Chief(Mrs.)Felicia Aderemi Ilaka is the President/Founder of Old Peoples Welfare Foundation, an organisation that is presently catering for the needs of over 2,000 aged people in Lagos. Mrs.Ilaka who hails from Ijebu Ijesha-Ilesa in Osun State will be clocking 79. In this interview, she laments the spate of suffering amongst elderly people in Nigeria.
Excerpts:

I decided a few years ago to set up the Old Peoples Welfare Foundation to address issues affecting elderly persons in our society who are over sixty-years-old. Most of them seem to lack proper welfare and maintenance. Though fortunately I am living a comfortable life as an elderly person, seeing aged people suffer makes me depressed.

So, I’ve been helping them for quite some time now with the help of my family. I only began to seek support when I saw that they’ve continued to increase day after day.

The first group that came to my aid was the Living Fountain Church in Lagos. Before then, they were running a place at Association Avenue at Ilupeju in Lagos where they fed the needy morning and evening daily! When they assisted me with foodstuffs for our elderly persons, the crowd sky-rocketed and I had to write to Prophet T.B.Joshua of the Synagogue Church of All Nations.

Immediately, he responded with three trailer loads of rice and four million naira! With that, we were able to distribute two bags of rice with 5,000 to each of our beneficiaries. Before I came back the following year from my hometown where I went to for Christmas, they had all began to look fat, fresh and happier.

Mrs. Felicia Aderemi Ilaka

You see, the root of their problem is not laziness. Most of them are retired but have not got their gratuity. Others are pensioners whose pensions have not been regular! Even for the ones whose pensions are regular, it is difficult to cater for themselves and their wives because the money is too poor; not to talk of catering for their grandchildren. So, you can see that things are really tough for them. Even their children who ought to be assisting them are finding it difficult to cater for their own families.

Some of them are traders who no longer have shops due to the destruction of shops that took place a few years ago in Lagos. They have no money to pay the rent demanded from them for the newly built shops as well! Presently, with the increase in unemployment, we’re advising them to encourage their children to go study Agriculture to enable them secure a source of livelihood while also contributing to the growth and development of the nation agriculturally.

I also want to appeal to government to put in place a scheme that will pay a certain sum of money to aged people. This is done in many countries! I cannot say that many aged people are suffering because they did not lay their beds properly; it depends on background, and as a matter of fact, all fingers are not equal.

In my numerous travels overseas to various countries, and I’ve seen how government takes care of old people and old people’s homes. Those in government themselves know that in future, they may be placed in old people’s homes. The aged have free bus passes and free medical care! If one does not die young, one will grow old. As an aged person, you will need care, not only from your children, but from government because you are now government’s property.

Nigerian government must not refuse or run away from this responsibility. They must shoulder it and give these people monthly allowances.  We also provide health services through the help of our medical team for them.  Now, they’ve grown to over 2,000 and to be able to manage them adequately, we’ve provided them with identity cards.

Background I’m a Nigerian but was born and partly raised in the Gold-Coast, now Ghana. I came to Nigeria to study at the Anglican Girls School in Ilesa. After that, I returned to Ghana to study Domestic Science.  Presently, among other engagements, I and my husband who is an educationist run a school, Obalodun Montessori Nursery & Primary School, in Lagos.’