My greatest regret today, by retired Immigration Assistant Comptroller General Gwandu
When did you retire from the Nigerian Immigration service?I retired on July 12, 2012 with the rank of an Assistant Comptroller General. How would you describe life in retirement?Life after retirement, as far as I’m concerned, has two sides. There is the beautiful side of it, having served and retired honourably and unblemished. Then there […]
When did you retire from the Nigerian Immigration service?
I retired on July 12, 2012 with the rank of an Assistant Comptroller General.
How would you describe life in retirement?
Life after retirement, as far as I’m concerned, has two sides. There is the beautiful side of it, having served and retired honourably and unblemished. Then there are also challenges. In fact, the challenges are more, given the situation retirees find themselves in Nigeria. Ideally, when you retire from service you should go and rest. But,in theNigerian situation, when you retire you just change trade. Some may retire and will not get their retirement benefits for years and some may even die waiting for it. For those who were able to get their benefits, it cannot even see them through their retirement life. So if you want to survive, you have to change the trade. That is why you find people looking for contracts and other means of survival after retirement. Those who are not privileged to be in government will, once again, face a lot of difficulties, particularly those that couldn’t undertake any trade. If you examine the kind of pension paid to the civil servants, you will understand what retirees are going through. A situation in which, after retirement you get less than one-third of what you earned when you were in service is demoralising.How do you cope with the challenges of life?When you were in office, you had some privileges, aside your salary. You had allowances and other privileges which you would not get when you retire. But your problems and responsibilities remain. For some of us who are lucky we changed trade and some who find themselves in government are lucky.
Even for some that are well-to -do the adjustment from what the body is used to is a problem. Some of us had spent 35 years going to the office every day and suddenly we find ourselves doing nothing when we wake up in the morning. This is very horrible. Some couldn’t adjust. Unfortunately, in Nigeria, to the best of my knowledge there is no proper disengagement programme for retirees. In some developed countries, for instance, two years to your retirement you are expected to go through some processes of disengagement. But here some people work up till the last day before leaving the job so they are retired suddenly. This may have some negative impact on them.
In your own case, how were you able to cope with these challenges?
I think I’m a little bit lucky. Lucky in the sense that I retired,but I am not tired. Like I said earlier, when you retire you change trade. Right from when I was in service I developed the habit of doing one thing or another – little business here and there. When the time for me to retire approached I tried to make a gradual withdrawal. By the time I finally disengaged I had already established something to do. Now, I wake up every morning and go to where I do my petty business.
When in service how did you cope with the anxiety of the unknown after retirement?
I didn’t have any anxiety because I planned for gradually disengagement. I knew it was coming certainly. When you are left with about two or three years to go and you start your gradual withdrawal, at the end of the day, you will not find it difficult. But if you allow yourself to be carried away by the euphoria of office certainly, at the end of the day, you will have a problem. There are people who are naturally enterprising even when in office. Some engage in farming and other legitimate businesses. There are lot of civil servants who are engaged in farming. Big farms, mechanized farming. When you have such, by the time you retire you have something to preoccupy you and it will make your life better by means of earning.
At what period of your life did this idea of planning for your retirement start?
Sometimes the environment itself has its influence over us. If you have friends that are in different kinds of business definitely you will develop interest. Some people will develop interest in farming and some in petty things even when they are in service. And knowing that you are going to retire will help you to make sure that you have to do something either for you to live on comfortably or, at least, to keep the body that is used to a busy life functioning. A foreign friend once told me that the very day they were commissioned was the very day they started preparing their retirement. This, to me, is excellent and beautiful. He said in his country they would make sure a professional is engaged to analyse their earnings as cadet officers or as young graduates and tell them what should be their expenditure. They will tell them that if they are able to do that at the end of the day they would be able to save some amount and would have some areas that they can continue to invest. So cumulatively, by the time they would retire that amount would be enough for them to establish something, wherever they wanted it, and their retirement benefit would follow. In the old system we had pension and gratuity. What is gratuity? It is an amount or certain percentage of money deducted from your salary throughout the service and will be given to you in total at the point of retirement. This is to enable you own a house wherever you want it and settle down. Subsequently your pension will be paid to you to survive. Now, the system is different and even where the system is not different the gratuity now cannot fetch you a home even in the village,not to talk of in the city because the amount is too meagre. Some that are in privileged organizations, such as the NNPC and others, go home with betweenN40million and N20 million. If you cannot afford a house in the city you should be able to afford a home in your village and subsequent pension should be able to take care of you. In a situation where you retire and cumulatively you are given N5 million, this cannot even buy you a plot of land and it is expected that you will settle down while waiting for your pension. This system is not favourable at all.
What have you been doing after retirement?
The issue of our economy determine what to do. Our economy cannot remain static for you to survive. If you carry your money to establish a pure water industry, for instance, there is no power. If you use diesel it will increase the cost of your production and at the end the unit cost of the item will go up even more than the one that is being imported and people will go for the cheaper one. Yes, I am engaged in some small contracts here and there. I also offer consultancy services. I embarked on property development either for rent or for sale. This is what I have been doing after I retired.
How was your first day in office like?
It was something I always cherish to remember because things were being done the way they should be done. I started work with a salary of N100 and, at that level N100 was enough for me and it was paid as at when due. Whatever was my entitlement, I received within a day. When I travelled, my travel allowance would be paid before 12 pm. At times, when I had claims I might even forget until the cashier began to look for me to tell me that I had so, so and so amount of money with him. As an intermediate officer, I had a house provided by government. From Level 06 to Level 07, you would have a house, only that it would not have furniture. By the time you are promoted to Level 08, you are entitled to a senior staff quarters with furniture. By the time you are on Level 12 as a Principal Officer you are entitled to a government house with soft furniture. In fact, a car loan would be given to you even before the six months of probation expired. That was why corruption then was very minimal. When you go to the hospital you would get drugs. When you take your children to school you don’t have to pay and if you pay it was just peanuts. The salary was enough for us. We didn’t have to pay rent because the government quarters was there with furniture. When you were transferred from one place to another, in addition to your benefits you were paid disturbance allowance.
All these are no longer available now. So tell me why there won’t be corruption, when every civil servant will rent a house even in the suburb here where a single bedroom goes for N700,000? How can somebody with a take home salary of N50,000 with a wife and children and have to pay school fees, because public schools are not functioning, he has to go to a private hospital and you expect him to save N700,000 every year to pay for rent. How possible is it? And you expect that when somebody offers him money he should reject it. It takes a very disciplined person to do that. I think it is not too late if government wants to reverse that trend. Let us be realistic. People are talking about minimum wage and it is the civil servants that are in charge of this. They know what they are spending. A clerk, for instance, must have at least one bedroom house to live. But his salary is not up to N100,000, not even up to N30,000, but a one-bedroom house is going for between N200,000 andN300,000. Tell me how he would survive.
At what grade level did you join the NIS?
I started work on July 12, 1977 as a clerical officer on Grade level 04 Step 1. I was earning N100 per month, i.e.N1, 200 per annum. Two years later I attended an Assistant Executive Officer’s course. When I returned I was upgraded to the position of an Assistant Executive Officer on Level 06 and my salary was increased to N180. I got married on a salary of N180 per month. But it was enough because a 50kg bag of rice then was just N10. There was a time a friend of mine escorted me to buy ingredients and other food items and I spent about N10. He marvelled. He was shaking his head in my car because I spent N10 buying meat and ingredients. He told me that even a commissioner would not spend more than that. That was in 1982. By the time I became an Executive Officer I was earning N263, I was given a car loan and N36 was being deducted as a repayment of the car loan. I never knew how to go and take credit from anybody. My salary was enough for me. I had a government quarters. When I got to the hospital I received medicine, so why should I demand anything from anybody? Getting to the position of a Senior Officer was all I needed in life.
What is the situation now?
If you have to reflect on the past, was there anything you regretted doing or not doing while in service as an Assistant Comptroller General of Immigration?
Throughout my 35 years of service I can’t recollect anything that I have regret on. I don’t have any regret. My only regret is seeing the way things have changed, not for the better in the service. The Service has been bastardized. Before, if you were working you didn’t need to see who you were working for. You see files on your table you just treat them. Today, if you are processing something at every table you would go and settle otherwise it would remain there. I recalled one Friday my boss called me and directed me to prepare payment for a particular contractor because I was in the Finance. I directed a clerk that was under me to raise a voucher and the person who was in charge to check, process and it was approved. Cheque was raised and when the contractor came he was told that his money was ready. He least expected that but the cashier brought the cheque, registered and he signed for his cheque. He was so happy and overwhelmed, so he brought out N500 from his pocket and gave it to my boss. My boss declined to collect it; he gave it to me. I didn’t collect it, he gave the two girls in my office, but none of them collected that money. He dropped the money on one of the tables and left. Believe me, that money stayed there for over a week nobody touched it. I can’t recall what actually happened to that money. But, today, you have to bargain.
Some people after leaving service live to regret life in retirement. What do you think people need to do to be happy in retirement?
In the first place you were there to serve. You should serve sincerely and honestly. By the time you do this you will retire feeling fulfilled. Two, retirement to a serving officer is ultimate. Why don’t you prepare for it? You should start the process of adjustment right from the service. If your salary is N200,000 per month and you know very well that by the time you retire you will not earn up to N100,000 why not start the process of adjustment? You must start adjusting towards the days of reality. Some are unnecessarily extravagant. Even while in service if you decide to live over and above your income the tendency for you to suffer is there. If you triy to stay within your income and know what you can afford by the time you retire that gradual adjustment will allow you to operate within your income. First, know your priorities and basic needs. Make sure you plan your life well. Five years to retirement you should start thinking of what to do because certainly you know what you are going to earn after retirement won’t be enough for you no matter how good you are in adjustment. Some people got carried away by the euphoria of office and they crashed.
Aside what you are doing now, would you say your pension is enough to make you live comfortably after retirement?
Absolutely no. There is nobody that can live comfortably on pension. Except for the few that are privileged to work in the organizations that are paying so much. In Nigeria there are lots of discrepancies. Somebody that is serving in the NNPC went to the same university with somebody that is working in the Federal Inland Revenue Service or in the local government, but you find that those in organizations such as the NNPC earn marvellously more than those from these organisations. This causes corruption. Let me tell you a story. I was a Comptroller in charge of Rivers State Command and one of the staff of LNG came to my house looking for immigration facility. Along the line, he was complaining to me that he was over-taxed in his salary. He said they over-taxed him to the tune of over N200,000. That was tax per month, so you can imagine how much was his salary. As a state Comptroller of Immigration then my salary was not up to the amount they are deducting from his salary as tax and he was just an administrative officer. Someone will spend all his useful days in service and at the end of the day when he retires there is no rest. That is not fair.
Now that you are retired how do you spend your free hours?
I play golf. That is what I do whenever I have free hours. I play golf and enjoy myself.