Retirement means a point in a person’s life, when one chooses to permanently stop working. The statutory retirement age in Nigeria is 60, and this is usually based on ones age or number of years put in service. It is believed that at a certain age, employees are expected to bow out of service after meritorious years in service.
Mr Adesola Ojediran, a 66 year’s old retired accountant who retired six years ago in a chat with Community Bell gave insights on what to expect after retirement. As we begin another decade, it is important that we shed light on issues that affects our lives in order to help those preparing for retirement in this decade.
How’s life after retirement?
Having worked for 38 years, retirement is something you plan for from your first day at work, it sounds funny but that’s the way to go, if you want to have a blissful retirement. Set your goals and consciously work towards them, so that you can have what to fall back on after retirement. The mistake most people make is not to make plans for it, so when it comes knocking, they find it difficult to adjust, the way you live your life during active service determines the type of life you live afterwards.
You talked about making plans for retirement, how do you mean sir?
I will give you an instance of making plans, from my personal experience, I started buying shares from as far back as 1970’s, as at then I didn’t even have full grasp about stock exchange so I have lots of moribund shares (laughs) but as time went on I understood how the market works. Buying shares is a way of investing although It’s gradually picking up after the crash some years back, but in spite of that take advantage of it. Then again, I buy policies from insurance companies, what this does is to ensure that one saves compulsorily, because at the end of a particular time frame certain payment called premium is expected to be made. Also I believe in Real Estate, instead of investing on cars that depreciates in value unlike houses and lands that keeps appreciating in value. I know times are evolving so what worked for me is probably not going to yield much interest, so the younger generation just need to find investment that is legitimate.
How were you able to adjust to the realities of being retired?
You know how our culture is, whereby as the breadwinner you take care of both the nuclear and extended families, so the first thing I did when I retired was to inform my dependants, so they will understand if I can’t be generous as I used to. So, the fact that I carried them along made it easy to transit and they understand. One thing I want parents to understand is that you can’t depend on your children totally for everything, they can assist but do not be solely dependent on them.
What should be ones’ focus after retirement?
It depends, on individual, what are the things that interest you, if you want to delve into soap making for instance, ensure that you start test running it before retirement so you would have overcome the teething problems while still in active service so that can be your focus after retirement.
Do you think our society takes care of retirees enough?
It can be better. I believe but it’s hard, the government isyet to fulfil their obligation to those in active service how much more those that are retired, so I believe it takes a conscious effort from those in government, it can be achieved.
