Members of the Nigerian Union of Pensioners, Akwa Ibom State Council, have announced that they will be embarking on a mass protest in the state over the poor payment of pensions to their members, News About Nigeria reports.
The State Chairman, Mr. Ekpeyong Ekpo, and State Secretary, Cosmos Essien, disclosed this to newsmen on Wednesday.
They stated that they would block the Government House gates to draw the government’s attention to their plight.
Recall that last week, the union expressed sadness that some of its members who retired in the 80s were still collecting a paltry sum of N1,000, N1,500, and N2,000 as pensions till date.
They lamented that efforts to get the government’s attention to ameliorate their worsening plight have fallen on deaf ears, hence the decision to embark on a protest to let the world know their predicament.
They also noted that the state government has refused to implement the review of pensions as stipulated in the 1999 Constitution, as amended.
“Whenever you retire, what is worked out for you remains static, until the 1999 Constitution, in Section 173 (3) (2) (10), explicitly says that pensions will be reviewed every five years along with whatever increase is given to workers. The government here has bluntly refused to implement the review.
“Can you imagine that in present-day Nigeria, many of our members are still collecting N2,000 a month, some N1,000 a month, and their current situation is very pathetic? Some don’t have children to care for them, and a few privileged people have while those who have children late are still training them in school,” Ekpo lamented.
He further noted that the state government had promised a minimum pension of N20,000 for those who retired before 1997 and N30,000 for those afterward and had asked that members across the board be informed, while promising to begin payment in April 2023 to avoid the accumulation of arrears, but maintained that till date, nothing has been paid, stating that all pressure on the government to implement it failed woefully.
The Union, however, expressed gratitude to Governor Umo Eno for the payment of gratuity, stressing that the governor has, within the nine months of his stay in government, paid over N14bn in gratuities which cut across civil pensioners, local government pensioners, primary school pensioners and next of kins.
