(Cont’d From Last Week)
Suleiman’s words to the protesters offered so much promises and hopes. But promises are merely just promises; and in the reign of the; until actualized. Same thing for hopes. His various predecessors may each have offered or not offered each’s brands of promises and hopes to the …. But Suleiman must go beyond rekindly promises and hopes to make good on his words. He is the man of the moment.
He has the option of doing, good to this particular set of retirees, as well as other NPA retirees, who have issues with the organization, and which periodically erupt in similar protests at the NPA House, ports locations and other facilities of the organization.
The other choice Suleiman has is to renege on his words to the ….. by his administration continuing in the footsteps of those of his predecessor in consistently ignoring court rulings in the retirees’ favour, and persistently laterally diverting funds for settling the retirees’ claims to other uses. The NPA boss is but one individual in a system of various individuals. Therefore, there is really a limit to what Suleiman can do as a person, concerning the retirees.
The influence of the bureaucracy in the system could be awesome, particularly in the negative the hydra and liaise delayed movement of files outright loss of files. Could be that the retirees’ files have been on an endless journey all these years? Or could it be that the retirees’ files have gone missing?
In the wake of the Yuletide, I ask this question about the……..Did they know it was Christmas? Yes, of course, I borrowed from the song title: “Do they it is Christmas? The song was co-written by Bob Geldory and Midge Ure as part of efforts to raise funds for and relieve the suffering so the victims of the 1983 Ethiopian draught and famine.
To the best of my knowledge, Nigeria has never known are real famine. Unfortunately, however, the lot of retirees of public corporations has largely been famine-likes Government, at the various levels, being the biggest employer, in Nigeria, any wonder the endemic corruption in the system? For rather than serving meritoriously, many a public servant would rather accumulate a nestbag by every foul means for those locust days that would surely come, arising out of a system that mostly fails to reward their service through appropriate gratuities or pensions, because the public service in Nigeria is thoroughly fouled up.
By obiajulu Agu
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