The Nigerian Governors’ Forum is reported to have advised the president of the Nigerian nation to retire civil servants that are 50 years old and above and leave only those less than that age in the service. This, according to them, will be the panacea for the economic recovery of the country. From whatever faculty the thought of this came, it is clearly not a reasonable one.
This is a country in which the official retirement age has been pegged at 60 years of age or 35 years of service, whichever comes first. Even at this, lots of the experienced workers are forced to retire at a time when they ought to be more beneficial to the service in terms of experience gathered.
Let us consider, without conceding that it is plausible, the suggestion of a 50-year cap on the career of a Nigerian public servant in a country where you can only know when you are admitted into a school without knowing when to graduate. This is a country in which people spend an upward of 7 years in the university for a 4-year programme due to no fault of theirs.
By the time one manages to escape from the strangulating grip of incessant strikes, one is well into the twenties and, therefore, begins a quest for employment into a service which vacancies have been reserved for the children and relations of the politicians. For many who are not lucky to be born with a ‘background’, they have to start scavenging for favours from someone who knows someone who knows someone in ‘government’ so as to be recommended for employment. By the time this person is lucky enough to get employed, he is already well into his 30s.
This 30+ year-old enters the service at entry point on a salary that is less than one hundred thousand naira per month, net. And it is from this salary that he would look after his family, immediate and extended, as well as plan for his retirement. In Nigeria now, with the enactment of the Pension Reform Act (2014) as amended, pension, which used to be the greatest attraction of the public service, has become a factor of what you earn, since it is a percentage of your pensionable emoluments that is saved with a Pension Fund Administrator on a monthly basis till you retire.
For most starters in the Public Service, both their employee and employer contributions to the Retirement Savings Account (RSA) on a monthly basis, is just about ten thousand naira. For someone who starts work at 35 years of age and retires at 50 years of age, the highest level this person would attain, if all things are equal, would be grade level 12. At which time, his pension contribution would just be about thirty thousand naira per month.
From the forgoing, this person would be lucky to retire with an RSA balance of six million naira made up of both the employee, employer contribution and return on investment made by the PFA.
It is hard to imagine how this person would make a living based on this meagre amount. The politicians who advised this retirement age did not reckon with this. How would they, when they consider themselves a special breed? The only people whose 8-year service (at most) entitles them to a-300% gratuity and pension for life!
At the current ages of retirement, coping with life post-service has been a big challenge for both the government and the retiree. Government has tried to ease her burden by the introduction of the Pension Reform Act which now makes pension contributory. Even at that, due to poor remunerations in the Public Service, the public servant sees a life of penury staring him in the face after retirement. For many, this is what drives them into sharp practices while in service, so as to feather their nests in preparation for retirement. How does this recent advice hope to solve the problem?
With the current existential struggles, we have people who come into the Public Service with certificates that show they completed primary schools before they were born, just so that they can stay for a reasonable number of years before retirement. If this new suggestion is come into force, it will be a slide further down the slope of forgery. People would start claiming their children’s ages just to be able to work. And once employed, they will spare nothing that comes their way, for time will be short.
As a corollary, there will be a dearth of experience and quality decision-making capability at the topmost echelon of the Public Service which will further deepen the culture of patronage over excellence. Whichever way, Nigeria will be the loser.