Senior citizens or retir ed pensioners, retired person, old age pensioners etc are common names given to retired civil servants. Their years of service to the nation and in what capacity they served may not be relevant in any public discussion.
For the purpose of clarity, a senior citizen is that person who has served as an employee under an employer and had relinquished his or her job on grounds of age or mandatory years of service or on health ground. He is an elderly person, especially an old pensioner. That a person is retired does not mean the individual cannot work or render any service to his or her nation. Most often, retired senior citizens are underated. Not much care and attention is given to them. It is possible some retired to face various degrees of challenges that lack immediate solution.. How do we care for retired civil servants? Who is responsible for caring for this class of people? What can we do to change the narrative in the life of these class of people? These and many more questions we will address in this write-up.
Let us clarify the concept of a retired civil servant often called a Senior citizen. Senior citizen is a created expression to describe retired civil servants who have worked in different capacities in public service but for reasons of age or meeting the statutory length of years of service as provided in the public service rules has to retire from service.
In line with the provisions of civil service rules, any officer who is under the employment of the government will retire after 35 years of service or 60 years of age. People who are said to be senior citizens when they reached the age of sixty or sixty-five because those are the ages at which most people retire from the workforce.
In Nigeria, older persons in this category and their families face challenges in coping with functional physical and psychosocial health status of the aging process. These factors include changes in family dynamics, increased demand for medical services, increased economic stress, and decreased functional independence. They hardly enjoy their monthly entitlement called pension or other benefits accuring to them or provided by relevant acts or laws They are often denied their rights by government. Many of them may not enjoy their rights or gratituties before they die.
Some crazy state government officials often subject them to timeless screening where most of them die from the rigour of the screening exercise. No adequate medical care for them and their families. Their dependants suffer untold hardship especially payment of school fees of younger children, payment of essential services they enjoyed while serving. Some state government takes joy in delaying the payment of their entitlement such as monthly pension, gratituties, and others. Indeed, payment of gratuities is based on political influence of retirees or God fatherism. Alot of retired civil servants who retired for the past ten to twenty years are yet to be paid thier gratituties whereas some who retired recently enjoyed their gratituties 100%. Where is equity and justice here? I may ask. God fatherism is the order of the day. Who knows who in power is the sad story. Those who have godfather influence enjoyed express payment of their gratuities while others spend endless days and months in pension offices seeking for assistance from greedy officers . It is on record that most families of deceased pensioners never had access to pension of their deceased parents.
It is against this background that this paper intends to look at possible ways of making life meaningful for senior citizens.
The government at all level of governance should not fail in their duties by ensuring strick compliance to the provisions of the laws especially those that cater for the welfare of senior citizens .
The government should ensure enforcement of the provisions of pension acts. Where the state or Local Government deliberately denied senior citizens their legitimate rights and privileges, necessary sanctions should be imposed on such authorities. Senior citizens should not be exposed to high level of insanity by who ever is managing their affairs. The government at all level should provide succours in the form of medical or Health care services, transportation services, housing services, recreational activities and other privileges to these class of people.
They should enjoy such privileges as health or medical-related privileges, transportation privileges( Senior citizens are entitled to a twenty percent discount and VAT exemption), yravel, entertainment, and recreation, utility discounts and taxation. On no ground should a retiree suffer bureaucratic bottle neck in the hand of some greedy civil servants. The pension board should be alert to their responsibilites by ensuring that senior citizens are paid their entitlements as at when due and their rights protected. As government is constantly reviewing the salaries and wages of civil servants, senior citizens pensions should also be reviewed upwards as well.
Samuel Shiaka*
08035908180