Madam Sharon, an angel in Buhari’s government?

This story is about how President Jonathan chute targeted my father and declared him an enemy and how an angel in this administration flew to Bida – only last week – to wipe away 10-year old sweat from my father’s brow. This is how it began.  My old man retired from the Federal Civil Service […]

This story is about how President Jonathan chute targeted my father and declared him an enemy and how an angel in this administration flew to Bida – only last week – to wipe away 10-year old sweat from my father’s brow.

This is how it began.  My old man retired from the Federal Civil Service in 1999.  He immediately got his gratuity and started receiving his pension regularly.  Around June of 2009, about the time President Jonathan started acting as president, the old man stopped receiving his pension.  We thought it was a temporary glitch in the system that would self-correct.  

It didn’t.  

It lasted almost a decade.  In those years, my father  lost friends killed directly by our pension system.  For example, he told me how two of his fellow sufferers came to Abuja to follow up on their pension.  While crossing one of the busy Abuja roads, they got knocked over by a car and both died.

My father himself had fallen ill a 100 times – but the pension was nowhere to underwrite the treatments.  It would have been disastrous if he had no other streams of income.

You see, pension is income replacement. The employer – in this case the government – employed workers like my father and promised to pay them a defined amount for life.  That’s why the old pension system is called “defined benefits” because you know the benefit or the amount you’re going to receive when you retired.

The system didn’t work in the case of my father and many others.  That’s why government in 2004 introduced a new system called the “defined contribution” that means you know what you and your employer are contributing – the benefit you will get after retirement is not  however defined, but your contribution is designed to grow and there are measures that ensure your money grows.  The popular name for this system is “contributory pension scheme” or CPS. This new system is regulated by the National Pension Commission or PenCom.

So what happens to people like my father who are already in the old system?  They remain in the old system.  But their wahala has been transferred to an office called PTAD (Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate).  That’s where  Buhari’s angel lives.

But before she came there, the leaders there weren’t so angelic.  Even though the staff at PTAD have always been sympathetic, it took the former leaders eons to do verification, but the old pensioners don’t have eons.  And in the absence of the money to take care of their ever present diseases, they did what old people do best – die.

I didn’t want this to happen to my father so I tried to find people to facilitate the payment even when I was in the diaspora. When I came back to Nigeria, I frequented PTAD’s office on Katsina-Ala Street Maitama, Abuja.  They always asked for more documents for their computersto consume, which  I always provided; and  I usually left that office happy because the staff gave me good news all the time:

“You can see only few of us are here,” they would say, “that’s because our colleagues have gone to X state to do verification.”

“So when are you coming to Niger State?” I asked.  They would give me a specific month.  But they never came.

I tried to use my contacts in the industry – and I know many, because I’ve taught workshops for the staff of many operators in the sector.  Still nothing.

So when Buhari’s government came in, it was one we could rightly claim ours because the people, the masses voted for it.  Certainly, the government would pay the poor pensioners?  When no noticeable change was observed, I penned a column calling attention to my father’s case including many people like him. I also promised to write many more – regularly.

 During a morning exercise in Abuja, I received an SMS from a man who read the column, telling me the head of the communications department of PTAD, Mrs. Amaechi, would call me. She did.  We exchanged calls, SMS and Whatsapp messages for months.  She asked for more documents. I submitted. I visited her in the office and went to Google Places and gave PTAD a 4-star review.

Mrs Amaechi was nice and sympatheic, but after several months had passed and her intervention didn’t bear any favourable fruit, I thought I was being taken for a ride again like the previous leadership of PTAD did.  By this time, President Buhari had appointed Madam Sharon Ikeazor.

When the Daily Trust published the report of the ordeals of the late Alhaji Hassan Lemu, Sardauna’s Principal Private Secretary, Madam Sharon responded swiftly and paid the old man his pension.  One week after his payment, he died.  (Although he was able to share the money among his family members before he left.)  

But I became concerned because I wanted my father to finish spending his money by himself and on himself before leaving us – and he talks about death all the time.

“I don’t want to inherit my father’s pension,” I wrote to Mrs. Amaechi urging her to do something.  As the only child of my parents, I could speak for other “children”. She promised that the verification party would soon come to Niger State.

It was at one editorial board meeting at Daily Trust I shared my frustration and vowed to continue expressing my discontent through my column.  “Before you do that,” a member of the board advised, “why don’t you contact Madam Sharon? She’s genuinely responsive.” He told me other impressive things she had done.  But still I wasn’t convinced.

So I reluctantly contacted Madam Sharon Ikeazor and within the same week, she caused a mobile verification to be done for my dad.  Way to go!    My only regret was that I didn’t contact her sooner.  And payment was made to my dad last week.  When he called me to confirm, I didn’t want to stay for long on the phone because I knew he would cry.

But even before the payment, I later discovered that Madam Sharon was genuine.   I could feel it in my bones.  Also, in Aisha Osori’s book “Love Does Not Win Elections” she mentioned how Madam Sharon Ikeazor spoke up for her during a meeting with Adamu Mu’azu when he was the PDP chairman.

Through her, Buhari’s administration also paid the Biafran uniform men, long pardoned but who remained unpaid, until now.

In her case Buhari has appointed well.  And we need more angels like her who will sweep away decades of wrong doing.  Due to her work alone, Buhari has won at least three votes from my family: Mine and two from my parents.