BVN: 75-year-old pensioner in trouble over verification

A 75-year-old Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) pensioner, Obabiyi Semiu Adesola, has landed in trouble for allegedly using two Bank Verification Numbers to verify his pension identification. Adesola, who claimed to be a barber, was handed over to the police at the Lion Building police station on Tuesday by the Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD) following […]

A 75-year-old Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) pensioner, Obabiyi Semiu Adesola, has landed in trouble for allegedly using two Bank Verification Numbers to verify his pension identification.

Adesola, who claimed to be a barber, was handed over to the police at the Lion Building police station on Tuesday by the Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD) following a nationwide verification exercise to update records of pensioners.

The PTAD is responsible for the pension administration of the defined benefit scheme (DBS) for retired civil servants.

In a chat with Daily Trust, the suspect explained that he had changed his name Obabiyi Semiu Adesola to Oyeromi Akinsola.

He said that poverty led him to look for work at the NRC in 1981 and was confirmed as a NRC staff in 1983 as a mechanical maintenance staffer. He claimed that he worked with the NRC for 10 years before he retired in 1993.

“My mother was old and she had a large farm hence I retired voluntarily to take care of her,” he said.

He added that his monthly pension was N5,500. When he came down from Ibadan to Lagos to collect his pension, he said, the NRC authorities demanded for his BVN, which he registered with the name Obabiyi Semiu Adesola.

Owing to the discrepancy in his name, he was immediately arrested by PTAD and handed over to the police where he was detained.

The National Secretary of the NRC Pensioners Association, Mr Gbade Gbadamosi, had been invited to help the police get to the root of the matter.

Gbadamosi told the police that he had a master list of all NRC retirees on a disk. He explained that if the suspect’s name was not on the disk, however, he (Gbadamosi) would have to go back to the office to bring the register containing all the names of NRC retirees.