Retired civil servants, under the aegis of the Nigeria Union of Pensioners, recently staged a protest in Ajaka, Igalamela/Odolu Local Government Area Headquarter, to protest against the non-payment of their pension arrears by the State Government, Our Kogi State Correspondent reports.
The aggrieved protesters, many of whom were dressed in different attires, carried placards with different inscriptions.
The retirees decried what they described as a “clandestine delay” in the payment of their entitlements spanning between fifteen months. Some of them, who spoke with us lamented that they had been evicted from their apartments due to their inability to pay their rents.
One of them, Alh Nuhu Ojomaje Shuaibu, said, “Some of us are tenants, we have been ejected. We are living in the apartments of friends. A man of 60 still squatting with a friend is a terrible situation.”
Another pensioner, who identified herself only as Hajia Ogwu, lamented that she had accumulated huge debts since she retired as a head teacher in 2015.
She said, “My pain is that the governor has not paid me my arrears. He owes me almost fifteen months arrears and he only started paying in last year. “What happens to the previous ones? We have borrowed money to keep our families alive. It is disappointing.”
The State Chairman of NUP, name withheld, said members of the union has been made to live on a meager payment of N2,000 monthly, due to the non-harmonization of their pensions.
While calling on the government to reopen the State’s pension board, he urged the State Governor to clear their outstanding pensions as a “parting gift”.
He said, “We demand the reopening of the pension board so that all of us can get our papers processed. We have arrears of those who were newly placed on the payroll spanning from 10 to 42 months; they are not on pension or salary. “The pensions of those who retired in 2006 have yet to be harmonized. We beg that Bello should harmonize our pension. We plead with his government to pay us all our entitlements before he lives office. Pensioners are not happy.”
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