The Federal Civil Service Pensioners Branch (FCSPB) under the Nigeria Union of Pensioners (NUP) says its 2nd National Delegates Conference has been postponed indefinitely.
Mr Sunday Omezi, FCSPB National Chairman, said this when addressing delegates at the branch 2nd National Delegates Conference on Wednesday in Abuja.
The postponement according to Omezi, was due to the inability of the NUP to conduct the election and then swear in the new executives as stated in the NUP Constitution.
The NUP had allegedly taken the action following the ruling of the National Industrial Court, barring it from not only dissolving the FCSPB’s executive before the election but also arbitrarily interfering in the affairs of FCSPB.
Recall that the FCSPB in 2021 had said that it would pull out of the NUP due to alleged gross violation of the constitution.
It would be recalled that the NUP had dissolved the entire executives of the FCSPB during its National Delegate Conference over alleged anti-union activities in 2021.
According to Omazi, I just got information from the NUP that they have decided to stay away from the election due to the court ruling that barred them from interfering in the FCSP activities.
“Today we are supposed to have started our national delegates’ conference to elect new executives that will run the affairs our union.
“But unfortunately, there is an issue between NUP and FCSPB which has been lingering since 2020 and the Ministry of Labour and Employment has been re-conciliating on the issues.
“Memorandum of Understandings (MOU) has been signed between both parties but none of this MoU have been attended to by the NUP,” he said.
Omezi added that the Ministry of Labour and Employment had told us that there was nothing that they can do to settle the issue except that we approach the National Industrial Court, which we did.
He also said that the court intervened and based on its interventions, directed that the NUP should not dissolve the FCSPB executives and also not to interfere in its operations.
He however, described NUP’s action as a misinterpretation of the ruling of the court, saying there were clear distinction between NUP action and the ruling of the court.
“The order of the court only stopped NUP from illegally dissolving the leadership of FCSPB and did not stop the former from conducting the election and inaugurating the new leadership. It is the NUP’s constitutional responsibilities,’’ he said.
He also alleged that the NUP was yet to remit to FCSPB 55 per cent of the N171 million of its statutory allocation.
According to him, the amount they are owing us is N171 million, they supposed to pay us 55 percent from that but they have failed to do so.
“They refused to pay us our April, May and June money in 2021, after they signed a memoranda of understanding with the Ministry of Labour that they would pay us.
“This year again, they did not pay us April, May and June which we are requesting. They are now saying that some people wrote petition against us. We are telling them that this is our statutory allocation and they should pay us our money.
“They refused and instead gave us for only one month, saying we should use the money to conduct our election, “he said.
He therefore appealed to its members to stay calm and be patience.
Meanwhile, NUP spokesman, BunmiOgunkolade, confirmed that the umbrella body of the union of pensioners boycotted the FCSPB delegate’s conference.
Ogunkolade said there was a court order directing the national body on to interfere with the operations of the FCSPB.
“The Court has asked us not to dissolve the executives and we need to dissolve the executives before the new elected executives can be inaugurated. So that is the reason and we cannot do otherwise except the court redirect, ’he said.
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