The CPS is mandatory for all employees in the public service. However, certain public officers are exempted from it. These officers are judges of the Supreme Court and Court of Appeal. These judicial officers are through the provisions of Section 291 of the the 1999 (as amended) entitled to pension for life at a rate equivalent to their last annual salary and their allowances in addition to any other retirement benefits to which they may be entitled. Others exempted include members of the armed forces, the intelligence and secrete services of the federation; any employee who is entitled to retirement benefits under any pension scheme existing before the 25th day of June 2004 but as at that date had 3 or less years to retire.
Browsing: Columnist
Prior to the coming into force of the Pension Reform Act 2004, pension schemes in Nigeria were categorised into public and private sectors. The public sector had the Pay As You Go (PAYG) Defined Benefits Scheme, which was bedevilled with many problems. Against the backdrop of an estimated N2 trillion deficit, budgeted appropriations for pension benefits had over the years fallen far short of promised benefits. This was further compounded by late release and sometimes, non-release of funds. Pension arrears owed to military, police, customs, immigration and prisons including civilian pension departments alone were estimated at N56 billion as at the end of June 2004. The pension crisis in the more than 300 federal government parastatals was alarming as most of these schemes remained under-funded.
For all incidences of rape, society is the loser. Depending on the nature of rape, women are not only the losers, but both women and men. In the case of rape committed against a wife, daughter, sister or relatives, there are multiple losers but women become the most affected, the most traumatised and the most depressed for ever. Rape must be elevated as a crime against humanity and the severest punishment must be imposed to serve as deterrent to those men or boys who cannot control the animalistic instinct in them.
The reaction of African-Americans when such issue as the murder of Floyd arose have been based on centuries of physical violence, psychological and mental torture that they have been compelled to undergo under the American racial realities! What is significant now is that people of all races are coming together to combat the American racist establishment.
For the current rulership (not leaders) in the African Union and for the African working class and poor masses in the Pan-African world, celebrating the African Liberation Day (ALD), moreso with the hopeless state of all the nation-states should be a moment to rethink, re-strategise and re-affirm our commitment to the visions, philosophical directions and practical examples articulated and demonstrated by Nkrumah, Cabral and Commandante Fidel.
The chickens have now come home to roost! Now a micro-organism known as COVID-19 has becomes so omnipresent in every corner of the world and is so life-threatening that the rich class and the ruling cabals in Nigeria who neglected the public health institutions and healthcare personnel (doctors, pharmacists, nurses, laboratory technologists and auxiliary workers), underfunded, distrusted and despised the sector are now held hostage in the country by the coronavirus pandemic from junketing abroad on medical tourism.
Every human being has his own well-wishers and those who do not have such dispositions towards him. You cannot be an exception.
As one of Nigeria’s foremost, illustrious and renowned statesmen of his generation, a labour leader of legendary austere profile and indomitable repute, the late Comrade Paschal Bafyau (of blessed memory), was from all fair and objective accounts, a hugely talented, highly respected and beloved president of the most formidable labour Centre in Africa, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC).
The NLC president appears to believe that there is no alternative to the current capitalist system, its inherent poverty and inequality. As a result, he appears to adopt a nationalist position and all that he can hope for is that the Nigerian economy develops and that some of the extra wealth trickles down to the poor majority. This is despite the fact that, especially over the last three or four decades, the wealth that labour creates has gushed up to the tiny minority of corrupt leaders. They have succeeded in enriching themselves beyond their wildest dreams and so they don’t really need advice from the NLC or anybody else.
What the Lagos governor, and his colleagues across the country, wouldn’t admit or may not know, is that the Poor have learnt from the very hard realities of circles of deceptions of the ruling class. The Poor do not trust them and never do they trust the middle class who speak big, big grammar that are inconsistent with their daily life experiences.