Three pensioners collapse during staff audit exercise in Osun

By Ismail Azeez, Osogbo

No fewer than three members of the Nigerian Union of Pensioners (NUP) Osun State chapter on Monday collapsed, during the ongoing staff audit exercise of the state workforce.

The incident, it was gathered threw members of the union into confusion as the healthy among them were running helter skelter to revive the collapsed victims.

It took the intervention of the medics of the State Ambulance Service to revive and stablise the victims.

Retirees, numbering about 2,000 old men and women who are visibly aged, frail and in some cases sick, were at the premises of the Center for Black Culture and International Understanding, Osogbo, venue of the ongoing screening exercise.

A number of them who could not withstand long time standing were seen either, lying down, sleeping or sitting on the bare floor to avoid eventuality.

Our correspondent who was at the venue of the screening exercise reports that many of the pensioners were visibly angry for what they described as inhuman treatment by the handlers of the exercise.

Samuel Aduroroja decried the arrangement and the eventual treatments of his colleagues who came for the exercise from across the State.

Though he agreed that the exercise as sanctioned by the State government was desirable, he was also of the opinion that the process would have been made easier if it were to be done on local government or zonal basis.

As at press time, the exercise was yet to commence as the consultant in charge, Saadat Bakri-Ottun was yet to arrive the venue, hence the wait prolonged.

The staff audit was earlier suspended for weeks by the State House of Assembly over inhuman treatment meted to the civil servants by the consultant, but the suspension was lifted after she promised to correct her mistakes.