Chi Ngo wrote:
My young mother—a schoolteacher of over 3 decades—died a few years to her retirement and about 10 months before the completion of Peter Òbí's tenure as Governor of Anambra State.
Her death was one of a totalizing pain, certifying and cementing our orphan status!
We kept mother's body in the morgue to plan for her funeral.
By the time we buried her body, Peter Òbí had just about 8 months to leave office.
Mother's fellow teachers asked me to ensure to begin the process of getting her gratuity and pensions immediately because it was a long one.
Many families, I would learn, have forgone pursuing these things especially when the children of the deceased are made, busy and are not even resident in Nigeria.
Pension officers and civil servants would simply corner the money once they are sure no one is coming for it.
I was regaled with many tales both of pessimism and fear coupled with my wondering of how I'd be traveling to Ọka, Ihiala, Ámáọbịa every now and then pursuing the stuff anytime I'm meant to.
None of my siblings would have had the time and endurance to pursue the cumbersome process from where they lived.
Again, wise colleagues of my mother warned: “Gbaa mbọ chụta ifea tupuu gọvanọ a nụnwa a pụọ.”
When I finally began the process, it was smooth and efficient though understandably hectic.
I had expected the civil servants that attended to me to be, as usual, crude, lazy and frustrating.
But they were not. No part of the process was delayed beyond the time it was scheduled to last.
They told you how long each process would last and when you'd return for the next, and never did I experience any form of “we are sorry, come next week.” I was not resident in Anambra State but I could perceive that Anambra Civil Service under Peter Òbí was unprecedentedly efficient, disciplined and humane.
A few weeks before Peter Òbí left office, mother's dues were paid and not a penny was owed.
It was like a film. I couldn't believe it. I knew fellow ụmụ ndị nkụzi/ndị nkụzi families who pursued their parents' gratuities and pensions for years but got nothing or got half of the dues.
But here was I, on behalf of my deceased mother, receiving the dues that accrued to her since she entered into the teaching profession in her early 20s.
Each time I come across Mr Peter Òbí on the several videotapes circulated across the social media talking about how he never owed anybody a dime before he left office as governor of Anambra State, I not only feel grateful to him and God but satisfied that my mother's over 30 years of toil in various schools as a young spinster, as a nursing mother, as a mother of grownup children and as a woman struggling with life and health did not go down the drain or trampled or embezzled by an unkind human person.
It was enough to assure her peaceful rest, despite the fact that she did not live to have the dues herself and do whatever she deemed fit.
I was not sure the story would have been the same if my mother retired in Imo or Abịa State Civil Service at the time, judging by the wicked tales that came and have always come from such states. Nor would it have been as smooth if it were to have been between 2014 and 2022.
Mr Peter Òbí MUST be elected by the people to preside over their affairs in the next republic for us to have some relief or we will all be crushed under Caterpillars and die painful deaths!
If you escape it, what of your mother, father, children, relatives, friends, siblings? Will you take all of these people to Canada or Europe in escape?
How long can you sustain or save them from the impending doom if the fools and glutton among us eventually allow Caterpillars to take over the ground and crush anything that exists?
#peterobiforpresident
