HOW THE WORLD’S MOST MYSTERIOUS MAN WAS SINGLED OUT OF ALL PENSIONERS AND FAVORED

This very mysterious man retired from public service voluntarily before he reached the age of retirement. This was because he felt that the government which he served did not keep him as busy as he would want to be. He was however entitled to be paid pension allowance, and this he was getting every month.

After sometime the Federal Government increased the emoluments of all workers, including retired ones who were receiving pensions. Following this, the pensions of those who had retired much earlier had to be harmonized. This resulted in the payment of some arrears due to this harmonization.

The Federal Government was the first to implement this payment and its attendant arrears to its own workers. The state governments followed and did the same thing one after the other for their own pensioners. Unfortunately, the state government under which he served was unable to do the same thing for its own pensioners. Meanwhile his state Union of Pensioners continued to plead with the government to pay them as other states had done for their own pensioners.

Five years passed, and still no harmonization payment for them. The Union summoned a meeting of pensioners frequently to brief them on efforts it was making to get government to pay them this money.

One day ,he approached one of their leaders in the pension Union and suggested to him his own plans on how they could get the government to bend and accept to pay this money to them. He rejected his suggestion and told him that they had done similar things, all to no avail. He even brought out one of the letters the Union had written to the state Governor pleading for this payment and gave it to him to read. After reading the letter, he still urged the Union leader to try his own plan but he refused, and felt it would amount to another wasted effort.

One day at prayer, he reminded our Mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary that She remains the Queen of Heaven and Earth, and that he was her slave and special child; and he pleaded with Her to talk to our Lord Jesus Christ about him, and request Him as She did at Cana in Galilee to order the State Governor to pay him his own harmonization arrears as he could not wait any longer. He needed that money to solve some serious financial problem.

Towards this, he booked a nine-day Novena Mass with his Parish Priest, and continued praying his rosary everyday. At the end of nine days, he then wrote a letter to the state Governor requesting him to pay his own harmonization arrears, and continued to call on Mary every day to pray for him by reciting Her Rosary.

One day as he was resting in his sitting room watching television, the door bell rang. He sent one of his children to go and see who was at the door. She  went and opened the door. In walked with her, a man holding an envelope in his hand and a small dispatch book.  After ascertaining that he was the person he was looking for, he gave him the book to sign and handed the envelope over to him. On top of this envelope was the inscription:’’ OFFICE OF THE EXECUTIVE GOVERNOR ’’.He thanked him and went inside his room to open the envelope.

It contained a reply to his letter to the Governor. It bore the signature of the Principal Secretary to the Governor. The letter directed him to go to the Ministry of Finance and meet the Commissioner for Finance who had been instructed to pay him the harmonization arrears he had asked for in his letter.

The next day, he hurried to the office of the commissioner with this letter sent to him. As soon as he presented the letter, he was told to go and meet the Accountant General who had already been instructed to pay him that money.

When he got to the office of the Accountant General, he was told that they had an instruction to pay him his pension harmonization arrears, but that they had no information about what the arrears would amount to. He was then told to go to the office of the Head of Service and request for the calculation of the amount to be paid, to enable the office act on the Commissioner’s directive.

He quickly wrote a letter to the Head of Service requesting for this calculation, attaching a photocopy of the letter he got from the Governor’s office approving his payment.

Upon receipt of this letter, the Permanent Secretary in the office of the Head of Service directed his staff to calculate the arrears. After this calculation, the document was passed to the Head of Service for approval and endorsement, but the big man refused to endorse it.

When he learnt of this, he sought audience with him to find out why. When he met the big man, he told him that the Governor’s letter he received was also copied to him but he would not do anything about that letter because the Governor had not given any approval for pension harmonization payment to pensioners under his administration. He said that he did not know why the Governor should single him out for such payment, no matter his relationship with his Excellency.  (He believed that he had some family relationship with the Governor, which made him to grant him such a special favour). The truth of the matter is that the Governor had never even heard of his name, not to talk of ever knowing who he is. On his part, our mysterious man had never even seen this Governor except on the television and pages of the  newspapers.

His next reaction to this refusal was to write again to the governor to complain that the Head of Service had refused to release the calculated figure of his harmonization arrears which would enable the Accountant General to pay him as he had directed.

Upon receiving his letter, the Governor wrote to the Head of Service enclosing a copy of his letter to him and asked him to comment on his allegation. A copy of this letter to the Head of Service was also sent to him for his information.

When he got his copy of this letter, he went back to the HOS to see him and find out whether he had changed his opinion over his request.

As he entered the office, he found the HOS relaxing with one of the Special Advisers  to the Governor drinking wine. He was in a happy mood. The HOS upon seeing him ,told his friend about his case and boasted that he was doing battle with him and was going to crush him in that battle. (The HOS did not know that he was actually doing battle with heaven and not with this man of mystery).

He said that he did not know the type of response the HOS gave to the Governor over that letter. All that he knew was that the next thing that happened was that he heard a radio announcement that the Head of Service had been removed from office. Whether this was a mere coincidence or as a result of what was going on about his payment, he would not know. After this announcement he went back to the office of the HOS; collected the figure requested for, and submitted it to the Accountant General who immediately paid him the money.

Although he kept all this to himself, yet each time he was able to attend the meeting of pensioners, he prayed for them to also get paid like was done for him. Unfortunately, when he made some enquiries six years after he was paid he discovered that the rest of the pensioners had still not been paid this harmonization arrears, but had been properly harmonized, and now received harmonized pension monthly, but the arrears are yet to be paid like was given to him.

 He always wishes that all would learn to approach the Blessed Virgin Mary for solution to their problems. Our lord Jesus Christ gave Her to us on the cross of Calvary to be our mother when He said to John (representing mankind) ‘’Son behold your mother”, and to Mary ‘’Mother behold your son’’-John 19:26-27. If only we recognized Her as our Mother, She would always be a mother to all who call on Her.