By Adenitan Akinola
Three pensioners today collapsed in Osogbo during the ongoing staff audit exercise organized by the Osun State Government for its workers.
The incident, it was gathered, threw members of the Nigeria Union of Pensioners NUP into confusion as they ran from helter-skelter to revive their collapsed colleagues.
It took the intervention of the medics of the State Ambulance Service to revive and stabilise 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 Centre for Black Culture and International Understanding, Osogbo, the venue of the ongoing screening exercise.
A number of them who could not withstand a long time standing were seen, lying down, sleeping or sitting on the bare floor and the grass to avoid any eventuality.
Radio Nigeria 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.
One of them, Mr Samuel Aduroroja decried the arrangement and the eventual treatment 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, but was of the opinion that the process would have been made easier if it were to be done on local government or zonal basis.
At press time, the exercise was yet to commence as the consultant in charge, Saadat Bakri-Ottun, was yet to arrive at the venue while the aged pensioners continued to wait endlessly.
The staff audit was earlier suspended for weeks by the State House of Assembly over the inhuman treatment meted out to the civil servants by the consultant, but the suspension was lifted after she promised to correct her mistakes.
Recall that pensioners had called on the state government to decentralize the staff audit of the state workforce.
The pensioners under the aegis of the Nigeria Union of Pensioners, Osun State Chapter said they were in the total support of the staff audit, but the government should put the aged and helpless retirees into consideration by decentralizing it.
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