Following the peaceful protest by members of the Nigeria Union of Pensioners (NUP) in Gombe State earlier on Wednesday, the state government has appealed to the pensioners to be calm as government is not unmindful of their plight and will soon address it.
The appeal was made by the Secretary to the Gombe State Government (SSG), Professor Abubakar Ibrahim Njodi who met leaders of the Union of Pensioners after they staged a peaceful protest Wednesday morning.
The Secretary to the Gombe State Government (SSG) who spoke on behalf of Governor Muhammad Inuwa Yahaya, appealed to the pensioners to exercise patience and remain calm as the Government is not unaware of their plight.
He said that government is willing and ready to pay all entitlements of the pensioners but for some bottlenecks and abnormalities the administration inherited from the immediate past administration in the State which it is trying to address and change things for the better since the current government was voted based on its promise to change things for the better.
According to him, there are many obvious issues affecting the smooth payment of pensions and gratuities but that government is not resting on its oars in addressing these problems that had accumulated for years before the coming of the current administration.
He said blaming the Inuwa Yahaya administration for non-payment of their liabilities was not fair owing to the fact that it is common knowledge to all that the immediate past administration squandered N59.6 billion of bailout funds meant for the payment of pensions gratuities and salaries without addressing the real issues up to the time it left office.
He said this is apart from so many anomalies that are recorded about State and Local Government civil servants which include ghost workers among many others and which the administration is committed to addressing.
The chairman of the pensioners, Alhaji Mohammed Abubakar, had told Journalists and repeated same to the SSG that Gombe Local Government workers are being paid uninterruptedly but wondered why the government says there is no money to pay pensioners.
He said that the union is not against any development, but queried that “can that continue at the expense of our members’ inability to foot bills for food, hospital, school fees, rent and other very important bills necessary for human existence?”
Mohammed Abubakar said that “Certainly, that cannot and should not continue as we are sure the Government cannot let us die. It is our entitlements we are asking. We are not asking for any other person entitlement but ours. This should be immediately considered,” the Chairman said with heavy hearts.
The pensioners are protesting the non-enrollment of more than 700 Local Government retirees who retired more than two years without being enrolled into the pension payroll.
They also want the government to resume payment of gratuities to Local Government pensioners which was suspended since June 2012 as well as the payment of state government pensioners which was suspended in 2014.
Another demand by the pensioners is that Gombe Local Government pensioners have not been paid March, June, November, December 2020 and January 2021 monthly pension although March 2020 pension was only paid in September 2020.
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