Picture taken from www.nigeriaembassyusa.org
In a country rife with tales of stolen
and unpaid pensions, not to mention the state’s general inability to take care
of the welfare of the average citizen (and this is not to discredit previous
efforts by past government, whose biggest crime in this matter has been an
apparent lack of sincerity), it’s hard to determine if Nigeria can actually
provide for its elderly, unemployed and orphaned. We’ve all seen the lines of
pensioners queuing up to get their pensions, sleeping on the floor, because
they came from far away and couldn’t afford to pay for a hotel room in whatever
major city they were called upon to receive their gratuity.
The fact is Nigeria has never set in
place an at least adequate system to take care of its people. Not to mention
the fear of the number of people who might take advantage of such a system, if
it were even put in place. On the issue of pensions, one of the reasons why so
many people are eager to work as “drones” (forgive me for using such a term)
for the Civil Service is to obtain one. You hear the story often told to people
reluctant to work for the Civil Service, they tell you to serve out a certain
number of years and you become entitled to a pension (if that doesn’t make you
a drone, I don’t know what qualifies). It’s one thing if you love the job or
just happened to be opportune to be offered one, but to get into it just for
the pension and a “secure future”, while understandable due to the “Nigerian
situation”, explains why there’s so much complain about the Service. Other ways
of getting a government pension includes working for other branches of the
government, again for a certain number of years as well (military, police,
e.t.c).
Private firms now offer people a pension
plan taken from their salaries by taking away a certain percentage of your
money and keeping it for you, sort of like saving for a rainy day and allowing
you to access it whenever you want. So what happens to those deemed
“uneducated” and don’t work a big job in the city, the farmers in the villages,
the non-government workers and those who have no idea what a pension is? Who
cares for them in old age? God forbid the farmer has no children, who takes
care of the farm? Understandably and perhaps apologetically to the government,
they can’t save everyone! But they can help the majority by taking care of the
two ends of the welfare spectrum; that is the very young (infants) and the very
old. Once that is done, the Middle Majority (those unemployed and often stereotyped
unruly youths that turn “thug” when elections come, lol) can be dealt with,
with less stress and in more innovative ways.
If the medical bills of the elderly from
a chosen age are halved (with the other half perhaps paid by the state or just
forgotten altogether) and parents don’t have to worry about paying maternity
bills or paying less, it goes a long way in setting the foundation for a
welfare state. These of course are just suggestions that are easier said on
paper, but in reality harder to practice, when you consider the state of our
Health industry and their dependent survival on funds.
So how do you come up with a system that
makes sure whether you work for the government or not, that you will be taken
care of in some way when you reach old age (whether financially or medically)
and that when you have children at their initial stage they’re not a financial
burden? I believe we have the money to create a half decent welfare system, otherwise
they wouldn’t be anything to “misappropriate” from the government from time to
time. It’s all about sincerity, I think and it seems to be what’s lacking.
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