Much ado about federal civil service age extensions

<p>CONCERNED Nigerians have expressed various views on the Nigeria Labour Congress’(NLC) demand for an upward increase of the country’s retirement age and years of service for civil servants. On May 1, 2023, the President of NLC, Joe Ajaero, during the 2023 Workers’ Day, asked that the age of retirement and length of service in the civil service be reviewed upward from 60 years to 65 years of age and 35 years to 40 years of service. According to him, some organisations tended to reduce the retirement age so that people could retire early and start doing something on their own. In the NLC’s one-sided opinion, it had forgotten that people would still be agile at 60 so that once they leave work , they would be able to do something on their own and benefit their lives and communities. One would have thought that the NLC would have advocated post-retirement business ideas and training so that before workers leave paid employment, they are already trained and equipped to survive and be extensively productive even unto their nuclear families.</p>, <p>The view of the NLC might be influenced by the condition of living, the economic situation of Nigeria and the fear of the future. However, advocacy for post-retirement business ideas and training would have been more professional. Ideally, retiring early is the way to go and the way forward is to make people entrepreneurial so that they can create more jobs, support them to retire early and give them the necessary funds and training to survive after retirement. The NLC’s advocacy is an ugly demonstration of colonial mentality of heaping all our means of survival on government rather than thinking to complement government’s efforts in productivity. Nigeria is used to being dependent even after our so-called independence. Extending retirement age and length of service would have an adverse impact on economy and outright gross national under-productivity.</p>, <p>Currently, 80 percent of teachers were analogue-trained in the Grade 2 system under the Universal Primary Education