Ex-Presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Mr Peter Obi has narrated an encounter he had with a retired civil servant while visiting the Shanahan College of Nursing Sciences, Nsukka in Enugu State on Saturday.
The presidential hopeful said he had visited the college to interface with the students and management of the school but was left angry after listening to the ordeal of the elderly woman “who devoted her time to the services” of the state.
Posting on X/Twitter on Sunday, Obi described the encounter as “chilling,” leaving him “seriously worried about the depth of insensitivity that characterises our political and institutional leadership in Nigeria.”
He narrated that, “While interacting with the management and students of Shanahan College of Nursing Sciences, Nsukka, during my official visit to the institution, I noticed this elderly woman struggling desperately to talk to me.
“People around tried to push her away and shun her into silence, but I instantly requested to have a word with her and hear her story.”
According to the former Anambra State Governor, the woman “introduced herself as a retired civil servant who devoted the productive years of her life working for the nation.”
She lamented that for a while her pension had not been paid. What was more heartbreaking, according to Obi “was that she had been sick and admitted to the hospital for over a week, with medical bills, but her immediate worry was that she did not even have one Naira to buy food.”
He said he immediately “felt a surge of anger and pity. Anger at leaders like me, who out of greed and insatiable desperation for material acquisition, have made life a living hell for others, by denying them the fruits of their labour. And then pity for the poor elderly woman, and many others like her whose painful stories may never be heard.”
He emphasised that “that is the nation we live in. A nation that has lost its sense of humanity and compassion.”
According to him, he had “said it before, and I still maintain that any government that withholds the pensions and gratuities of our senior citizens in their vulnerable years, is wicked.
“As a Governor, I inherited and paid off over N30 billion in pensions and gratuities accumulated over the years, because I understood the pain the elderly citizens were going through.
“I instantly gave her my little support and promised to follow up her case with the hospital management.”
He however said he is “more concerned with the many others like her, dying in silence in many parts of the nation, because no one can speak for them. We must fix this nation.”
“Nigeria must work for all, and everyone will get their due rewards for their productive contributions,” he added.
Ex-Presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Mr Peter Ob with a retired civil servant at the Shanahan College of Nursing Sciences, Nsukka, Enugu State
Ex-Presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Mr Peter Ob with a retired civil servant at the Shanahan College of Nursing Sciences, Nsukka, Enugu State
