The 2023 presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, has condemned the Nigerian government’s handling of pension payments, describing the country as one that had lost its sense of humanity and compassion.
Obi expressed his concerns in a statement posted on his X page on Sunday.
He made this remark while reacting to an incident involving an elderly woman who struggled while interacting with the management and students of Shanahan College of Nursing Sciences, Nsukka, Enugu State.
The former governor of Anambra State lamented that the elderly woman had to struggle to receive her rightful entitlements after years of serving the nation.
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He decried the fact that elderly citizens who had dedicated their lives to building the country were now being subjected to extreme hardship due to unpaid pensions.
Obi said what was even more heartbreaking was that the woman had been sick and hospitalized for over a week, accumulating medical bills, yet her immediate concern was that she did not even have one naira to buy food.
“I felt a surge of anger and pity. Anger at leaders like me, who out of greed and insatiable desperation for material acquisition, have made life a living hell for others, by denying them the fruits of their labour. And then pity for the poor elderly woman, and many others like her whose painful stories may never be heard. That is the nation we live in. A nation that has lost its sense of humanity and compassion.
“I have said it before, and I still maintain that any government that withholds the pensions and gratuities of our senior citizens in their vulnerable years is wicked. As a Governor, I inherited and paid off over N30 billion in pensions and gratuities accumulated over the years, because I understood the pain the elderly citizens were going through. I instantly gave her my little support and promised to follow up her case with the hospital management.
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“However, I am more concerned with the many others like her, dying in silence in many parts of the nation, because no one can speak for them. We must fix this nation. Nigeria must work for all, and everyone will get their due rewards for their productive contributions”, he added.
