What is patriotism and how do we define it? Most people in Nigeria and around the world may have different answers to this question. However we are not going to go into this topic today but in our future article yes we will. Our (Viewers Corner News) concern is on how Nigerian ex-governors and their deputies are receiving huge sum of money as pensions and at the same time getting salaries from their other jobs. We are not saying that pension should not be paid to them, no that is not the issue, they deserve to be paid their pension. The truth is that the word pension is associated to what rightfully belongs to you as income to be received when you retire from active service and this is mostly paid to those that have reached to the age of receiving such entitlements, it varies from country to country. Now if you look at most ex-Nigerian governors today, some of them are not old and are still working as senators, even having their businesses in various places within the country (Nigeria). In our (Viewers Corner News team) opinion, we believe that it would have been better to place an age limit which ex-governors and their deputies would attain before being qualified for pension allowances which they are receiving now. Even those that served one term are also receiving pension, this is not right. If you serve as a governor and your age is below 65 years, you should not be entitled to any pension benefit. You should wait until you get to that specified age before getting such benefit. We know that some people may not like this idea because of greed for money but that is how it should have been and anyone who calls himself a patriot and care for the interest of Nigeria should plead with the Nigerian lawmakers and the Buhari’s government to look into this issue to have it implemented. Now almost all the ex-governors and their deputies are gainfully employed while the Nigerian people who voted for them in the past are in abject poverty. Again they are lots of pensioners in Nigeria who are above 65 years of age and have not been paid their pension allowances for many years by these ex-governors. Is this fair? Where is our conscience as patriots? A Nigerian governor would serve just one term or two in office and when his tenure ends, he or she starts getting huge amount of money as pension allowance while those that have worked for over 35 years in various offices are getting less, that is if it would come at all. This is not fair and that is the reason Viewers Corner News and the advisory team is appealing to the lawmakers in Nigeria and also president Buhari’s government to kindly review this law that gives out such huge sum of money as pension to the ex-governors and their deputies in Nigeria. Now if we calculate what is being paid to ex-governors alone, such huge amount of money is more than enough to create infrastructures for the country (Nigeria). Our (Viewers Corner News team) message is clear which is retired ex-governors and their deputies should receive allowances when they reach 65 years of age because the retired governors and their deputies in Nigeria today have businesses worth billions of Naira and still very active in politics. Some are senators and at the same time collecting pension allowances. If you examine this issue properly, then you would be in a better position as a Nigerian citizen to define the word patriotism in your own way and decide whether these pensions being paid to ex-Nigerian governors and their deputies are done correctly. This would bring us to the question of the day which is, are these ex-governors and their deputies including other past leaders fair to Nigerians? They talk about patriotism but practise the opposite. Why should they be receiving such huge sum of money while the ordinary Nigerian person remain in abject poverty, over 38 billion Naira is allegedly spent on them alone for pension. What a deceitful world we live in. May God help his children.
Source: Viewers Corner News News.