Welcome to the Pension World

Retirement or exiting an activity, be it a paid job, a private business, sport or whatever, is an inevitable reality that everyone should expect, and very usefully, prepare for, and subsequently, live with it.

It is in the context outlined in the first paragraph that I most sincerely welcome the multitude of Nigerians who were recently screened by the National Pension Commission (PENCOM) preparatory to their unavoidable separation from their jobs, to the Pension World.

The Pension World or world of pension requires additional preparations outside screening, registration and the earlier assignment of a Personal Identification Number (PIN) by the National Pension Commission.

The preparations are equally beyond the usual preretirement training organised by Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) and other employers. In such training sessions, the soon-tobe retirees are told to look for and engage in some moneymaking businesses, probably by staking their lump sum takings from their Retirement Savings Accounts as capital.

They were also taught other things they may consider doing as retirees, including joining clubs, registration in voluntary community development groups or evolving into a quasi "Islamist," or "Christianist" by going closer to clerics of either of the two principal faiths.

The additional, in fact, main preparations to a life in retirement come from the inner-self, through clear thinking and the assessment of the reality facing the individual. It involves intense, beneficial communication with the self.

It is only the retiree himself or herself that can adjust his or her lifestyle that was the norm while the salary comes in regularly; supplemented by occasional privileges such as duty tour allowances and seasonal gifts of foodstuff, which many took for granted. These extras complement the salary to give the worker a relative life of comfort and a sense of contentment.

The salary, regular or irregular, will stop on exiting that job. The other privileges which flow because of it will evaporate. There will be no gifts of cartons of oil and bags of rice from the employer, fought for by the Unions. This will punch a hole in your wallet. It will be painless, or more realistically, less painful, where the new retiree is mentally prepared for the "shock."

Other privileges such as riding to work in staff busses or "project vehicles" will end. The logic is that you can't ride the bus or be chauffeured in the project vehicle because there is no work to go to, nor a project to supervise. You are grounded, except in the event one has free access to an ill-maintained, 18-year-old, scrap-grade, jellopy.

And going to that staff clinic and your health service provider will end. The National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) to which you were enrolled "automatically," or more accurately, compulsorily, as a contributor to its financial pool, will no longer take care of those basic drugs the Scheme guarantees for you as a worker; you will now be responsible for the basic treatment and essential drugs. It is up to you to prepare for that reality as a retiree.

As a person hitherto receiving regular monthly salary, prepare mentally that you will wait for some months before your Retirement Savings Account is updated with the last remittance which paves your way to go for more verification of your identity, complete with a sworn affidavit, before your Pension Fund Administrator determines the lump sum and monthly withdrawal amount your savings entitled you to.

Note that, as an adult with less income, no one will remind you to downsize your spending on everything, ranging from frivolous trips to digital television subscription, replacing bottled water with sachet water, jettisoning eating N1,000-plus meals in restaurants and perhaps, even less meat. Buying fewer or zero new fashionable wears is additional reality.

You will discover that there is a long list of things to do or avoid as a retiree in the Pension World.

Note that, as an adult with less income, no one will remind you to downsize your spending on everything, ranging from frivolous trips to digital television subscription, replacing bottled water with sachet water, jettisoning eating N1,000-plus meals in restaurants and perhaps, even less meat.