EDITORIAL: Abia’s laudable special care for elders

Social safetynets for citizens are not an integral part of governance in Nigeria. When one is established for those at the nadir of their lives, it is good thinking, and an inclusion of ageing as an imperative of social policy in statecraft.

As reported in early February, Governor Alex Otti has embraced this by institutionalising a special care for the elderly, aged 60 years and above in Abia State. It is highly commendable!

This is articulated in the Abia State Senior Citizens Bill introduced in 2025. It is aimed at improving the quality of life of the elderly and in honour of their contributions to the growth of the state during their youth. This highly laudable act of governance, signed into law earlier this year, has been trending since then. A meticulous implementation of the scheme would undoubtedly mitigate the social challenges that the elderly often face, due to poverty and lack of care.

To this end, the state government has established the Abia Senior Citizens Centre, to create a database of this most vulnerable demographic group. Giving details of the scheme, the state’s Commissioner for Information, Mr Okey Kanu said, “Ageing comes with health challenges, social isolation and economic vulnerability. Law 4of 2025 is therefore a social protection policy, not political symbolism, aimed at restoring dignity, care and relevance to elderly citizens.” He emphasised that the scheme is a structured social welfare and support system designed to provide care and coordination, and “not (for) direct cash handouts.”

Even at that, it resonates, as it is often said, “health is wealth.” Senior citizens in most rural communities across the country could be seen in states of lack, despair and abandonment, savaged by ailments such as arthritis, swollen limbs, diabetes, glaucoma, hypertension, dementia, incontinence, Parkinson, and others.

Governance is about care and compassion for the citizenry, espoused in Section 14(2) b of the 1999 Constitution, as amended: “Security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of governance.” Ifall state governments were to shoulder the healthcare of their senior citizens, as expressed by the Abia State example, a critical social burden, and one of the existential challenges of their lives, would have been takencare of.

But this has not been so, evident in the misapplication, if not mismanagement of state resources that have defined governance in the country. Generous benefits are provided for life for ex-governors in the statepensions laws across the country, with mansions also built for them in the states and Abuja, in addition to the granting of humongous car emoluments, cars, domestic aides and healthcare awards. In Abia State, Mr Otti has repealed this law. He disclosed that, “One of the people that should be paid wrote to me about not being paid; I put a call across to him and explained why it should not be paid, and he agreed with me.”

Otti’s concern for the elderly first emerged when he vowed to clear all the pension and gratuity arrears of retirees in the state, dating back to 2014, which had accummulated from preceeding administrations. As of April 2024, he had paid 12,500 of these retirees, just as he had, as of May 2025, spent ₦30 billion in clearing the salary arrears of workers, out of the ₦50 billion he inherited.

As a matter of fact, geriatric care and the building of sustainable safety nets are critical social issues in governance in developed countries such as the United States of America (USA), where 90 per cent of adults get social security benefits. “There is strong support for social security, as well as the idea that the government should provide, or pay for care for older adults with care needs” in the country, according to Adrians Reye, an assistant professor with the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Social Policy in Cornell University, USA.

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Even when income support for citizens is integrated into governance frameworks in the country, operational inefficiency and corruption usually tend to hollow them out. In November 2025 for instance, a World Bank report on The State of Social Safety Nets in Nigeria, gave a damning account of how only about 44 per cent of this support reach the poor.

Safety nets are supposed to be bold, humane and policy choices that align with transparency and accountability principles. In an attempt to make amends to its inefficiency, the Federal Government suspended the digital cash transfer scheme of ₦25,000, which originally benefited 70 million Nigerians from 8.5 million households. Yet, the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Mr Wale Edun, says that the scheme would subsequently be expanded.

However, it will be meaningless to resuscitate the programme without first bringing to book the culprits that master-minded the fraudulent dealings running into billions of naira in the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation in 2024. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) said it investigated and recovered ₦32.7 billion and $447,000 stolen from the scheme, as of 2024. Some former ministers have either been quizzed or have refunded huge sums of money to the government in this regard.

The point must be clearly stated: the government’s attempt to temporise on the sleaze, perhaps for it to fizzle out of public cosciousness, before the business continues as usual, will only deepen the mess. At all levels of government, with more revenues being earned, we need more deliberate social policies that touch lives in these austere times.

As an exemplary and responsive social policy, Governor Otti should see this healthcare programme of his administration for the elderly through, in a way that serves as a paradigm of what is desirable in governance to other states in the country.