LAGOS —FOUR retired soldiers collapsed and died while under-going verification and documentation exercises at the Directorate of Military Pensions Office, Ikoyi, last Tuesday and Wednesday.

Sources close to the ex-soldiers told Vanguard yesterday that two of the retirees died on Tuesday while the other two died Wednesday before they could be rushed to the hospital.

The source noted that the late retirees who came from the Northern and Eastern parts of the country had spent over one week sleeping under makeshift huts erected close to the DMP office while the verification lasted.

According to the sources, "the death of the retirees and the painful circumstances surrounding their deaths encapsulates the untold hardship we are being made to undergo on a daily basis by the DMP."

"Or else, how can you explain a situation where we are asked to come to Lagos from places as far as Kaduna and Kano for unending verification exercises."

"In fact, before we get here most times, the little money that is left from what we borrowed, after paying our transportation cannot buy us food for two days. That is why you see most of us dying and collapsing because there is no food in our stomach."

"The other day, one of us who is an elderly retiree had to come with his wife because he could not stand the rigours of queuing up for long hours only for the poor woman to collapse and die in front of the husband."

The ex-soldier pleaded with the Minister of Defence, Gen. Theophilus Danjuma to take drastic action to alleviate the suffering of the retirees by addressing the short comings of the DMP once and for all. The more they continue to delay, the more people will continue to die because they don’t have any other thing to look forward to than their retirement benefits which is our legitimate entitlement," he said.

It would be recalled that last week, the Chief of Air Staff, Air Vice Marshal Jonah Wuyep while touring Airforce formations at the Tactical Air Command, raised the hopes of personnel when he disclosed that the Minister of Defence in a meeting with service chiefs, agreed that the activities of the DMP should be decentralized.