Pensions verifications exercise going on currently in Rivers State, and perhaps other states too, provide vital learning opportunities which can give some insights  towards a better understanding of why the country is in its current situation. Apart from imprecations and maledictions being pronounced upon “those who are making us to suffer in hunger and shame in old age”, pensioners sitting and discussing in groups make lots of revelations in their lamentations. Any inquirer interacting with pensioners would catch some whispers that “there are levels 507 civil servants, each with 3-5 houses across Nigeria and abroad”. Would such ones beg for food after retirement, or queue up for verification?
To say that the civil service at all levels of government deserve thorough restructuring and revamping, is a mild statement. Even if all the personnel get sacked or retired now and new persons employed, that step would rarely sanitise the civil service in Nigeria. At the pensions verifications venues, any inquirer with some knack for eavesdropping, would hear of various forms of malfeasance in the public service and how they became enthroned as a culture that can hardly be rooted out. We reap what we sow! A smart inquirer would hear that “more than 50% of civil servants have court affidavits as certificates that were destroyed by fire or stolen by robbers and burglars”. The issue of “Toronto Certificates” and affidavits in lieu thereof, is a pandemic malfeasance in the public service sector. A second malfeasance is that “sacred cows, including holders of Toronto Certificates, have godfathers as their protectors and defenders”.
Lamentations of heart-broken retirees include the allegations that the civil service has become a cult and a safe haven for politically sponsored employees. Thus is the claim that “political employees have spoilt the civil service.” In the case of Rivers State, the genesis of the malfeasance was traced to the Nigerian Civil War era, where fake and “Toronto Certificates” provided employment opportunity for many smart persons. This was followed by the culture of “use of military fiat to silence queries and questions of impropriety in the service”. Today, the civil service is a shadow and mockery of its past glory. Disappearance of files began 1972.
One senior citizen confessed almost in tears, that: “my heart bleeds for this country…” He did not stop there but added that the “locusts devoured the best and the pride in us”. It is hardly wrong to say  that a declining process had been going on in the civil service over the past many years, perhaps aggravated by the use of federal character measures and criteria in employment of public servants. For example, what explains the phenomenon of a Nigerian professor claiming that all his scholarly publications were destroyed in a fire disaster? No duplicates?
The satirical comment of an assessor in a promotion interview invited suppressed laughter: “So with fire and brimstone consuming certificates and scholarly publications, and count affidavits coming to the rescue, then comes quota professors without publications”. Talking about professors without books or any values and ideas to profess, the Nigerian knowledge industry is in the forefront of declining sectors in the country, resulting in our current unenviable situation.
Before we got to where we are currently, causing senior citizens to lament at pensions verifications venue, on-going rots in the country had been pointed out at various fora across the nation. This writer’s work: Understanding Human Environment, (2008) in chapter 4, contains a reproduction of a conference paper of 1998, calling the nation’s attention to some sad trends in the country’s development process. From errors in economic policies, to the possible results of a “Land-Use Decree”, attention was drawn to what military rule would bring about in Nigeria’s future. Particularly, the enthronement of a system of Sinecure and Patronage would always undermine productivity and honest, hard labour.
What we are passing through currently surely did not start today, but the foundations were put in place long ago, via the instrumentality of impunity and abuse of due process. From restoration of sanity in governance, to elite apathy, arrogance and vaulting ambition, the mass media in Nigeria had not been silent in drawing public attention to the rots taking root in the country over past years. Neither can anyone say that the nation is short of people of integrity and ability to do things aright.
While Nigeria’s senior citizens are lamenting, with bleeding hearts, Nigerian youths are putting the blame of the nation’s rot on the older generations. But the truth is that buck-passing should not be the appropriate issue to pursue now; rather, there is a need to recognise and admit our collective failures. Abuse of power and resources always feature in the decline of any nation, neither are such abuses peculiar to the old or young generations alone.
Water would always look for its level, as the old idiom goes. This can be interpreted to mean that “Nature craves all dues be rendered to their owners”, as we find in Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida. What is known as Onanism does not only refer to the action of a Biblical Onan and the wastage of male sperm, but it includes massive looting and unmerciful use of a nation’s resources. An old man, aged 82, at the Pensions Verification venue lamented that: “From masturbation to oil spill and gas flaring, Nigerians are noted for resource wastage”. On the other hand, energy conservation and prudent management of resources are very vital in building up a nation that would last in good health.
Another lamentation of Nigeria’s senior citizens is that: Once you are out of power and office, you are also helpless and deemed to be useless, an old wood”. This lamentation came from one of the best-trained police officers who said that he was ashamed and wept for the handlers of the nation’s security affairs. So, what is wrong with creating a platform for making effective use of the skills and experiences of retired public officers? The answer come from another “old wood”: “Many in service fear and hate being overshadowed or exposed as being incompetent by their retired colleagues, if brought in to help”. A situation where people fear their shadows, but want to continue in their ineptitude rather than allow for cross-fertilisation of ideas, obviously there must be something putrid and ugly being covered up. May Nigerian senior citizens weep and lament no more. The grave can be a succor.

By: Bright Amirize

Dr Amirize is a retired lecturer from the Rivers State University, Port Harcourt.