Between Kleptomaniacs And Pensioners —Isaac Asabor

A dictionary-oriented website, www.thefreedictionary.com defines a Kleptomaniac from a psychiatric perspective as a “strong impulse to steal, especially when there is no obvious motivation.” Regrettably, given the mind-boggling revelation regarding the monumental fraud that was perpetrated by some unpatriotic officials charged with the responsibility of managing pension funds in our country, one may not be considered to be a mischievous person or a comedian when caught weeping in the market place.

The reason one would not be called a mischievous person or a comedian for weeping in the market place over the looting of pension fund is that the prodigious pension fund that has so far been reportedly plundered by kleptomaniacs who deceptively parade themselves as civil or public servants was meant to ensure that our elders, who spent the most active part of their earthly journey in serving the public retire into a comfortable phase of their lives.

But alas! the kleptomaniac has squandered virtually all the funds accumulated over the years for the comfortable retirement of our retired elders. This is what the Englishman would call “An inhumanity to man”. The pidgin English speaker would describe the ugly situation as “Monkey dey work, Baboon dey chop”.

A kleptomaniac does not believe Robert Schuller who said “Plan your future because you have to live in it”. A kleptomaniac does not believe the opinion of A.O. Amadi in his book “Preparing For and Managing Your Retirement” that “Retirement affords the retirees more time and leisure opportunity than usual. It represents a gift of some 175,000 hours of time at one’s disposal… In the past during regular employment, someone else decided that the use of your time, what you should do, when you should do it and how you should do it. In retirement, you will be completely responsible for your time. What, when and how to do things will be entirely up to you.”

Given the foregoing, it is very obvious that Robert Schuller and A.O.Amadi never knew kleptomaniacs in Nigeria would make their respective well-intentioned opinion appear nonsensical.

Today, the majority of our pensioners, contrary to Robert Schuller’s wise-saying, are not living in the future they systematically planned for.

Most of them never planned to line up at pay centres from morning till very late in the evening at times, they were told to come back the following day for their pension payments. Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “The future belongs to those who prepare for it.” Most of our pensioned fathers truly prepared for the future but it is very unfortunate that young and corrupt pension officials have seemingly thwarted their plans of comfortable retirement.

Most of them never planned to be fending for their youthful and energetic children that graduated from our universities and polytechnics many years ago. They toiled to train their children through tertiary institutions with the belief that they (the children) would in turn take care of them at retirement. As it is now, most of them have had their hopes dashed as their children they variously struggled to sponsor through tertiary institutions years ago are still hoping to secure jobs. No doubt, most of them literarily toiled day and night to see their children through tertiary institutions apparently in the light of an African proverb that says, “Today’s parents are the future children of today’s children.” As if to agree with the foregoing saying, an English proverb also says “Children are poor men’s riches.”

Contrary to Amadi’s opinion, the kleptomaniacs in our pension offices have ensured that the pensioner does not have total control of his time. A great percentage of his time is used in responding to exigencies that usually emanate from his erstwhile office. Therefore, he is always on the road travelling several kilometres for clearance, verification exercise, payments and other strenuous and dehumanising exercises that are conducted as pre-requisites for his pension payments virtually on monthly basis.

The kleptomaniacs have ensured that the pensioner would never have the time to read newspapers, stretch his ageing body on the settee while watching his grand children play to his admiration. The relaxation mood painted in the foregoing sentence would have gone a long way in boosting the state of health of the pensioner. But never! The kleptomaniac has somewhat made pension issue become the pensioner’s obsession. As you are aware, the health implication of being obsessed cannot be far fetched.

Kleptomaniacs in our pension offices are heartless. How else can one describe those that are reaping from where they did not sow in order to sustain their insatiable and frivolous lifestyle of maintaining fleet of choice cars, highly-valued estates and dozens of women of easy virtue?

The kleptomaniacs who deceptively parade themselves as pension experts are heartless to the extent that they hardly realise that most of the pensioners are above 65 years of age. They do not care to know that those above 65 years of age are susceptible to arthritis, hearing impairment, vision impairment, hypertension (high blood pressure) and heart-related conditions.

At this juncture, one is tempted to ask; what can be done by the government to whittle down the negative impact of the kleptomaniacs’ fraudulent activities on the lives of pensioners?

First and foremost, I would suggest that the widely reported monumental pension fraud should be investigated and all those found culpable should be brought to book.

To ensure that all the kleptomaniacs at the pension offices across the country cease from subjecting elderly Nigerians who served the public to untold hardships, those who will be found culpable in the monumental fraud that can best be described as “Pension Gate” should be legally dealt with to serve as a deterrent to others.

Finally, just as the governments are wont to avail scholarship and research grants to Pediatricians (specialists that take care of children’s health) in order to enhance a vibrant health for the children, they should equally extend the same grants to Geriatricians (specialists that take care of the health of the elderly). Also, I suggest governments at both federal and state levels should also make efforts to establish Geriatric hospitals all over the country the same way efforts have been directed toward the establishments of children’s hospitals and children departments in our hospitals.

•Asabor wrote from Lagos