It is on record that a section of the pensioners is sponsored to take expensive advertorials in the name of pensioners during election period since the opposition has lost credibility in Osun. The pensioners are now the mouthpiece of the opposition in Osun. The good people of Osun State should watch out for more pensioners’ blackmail advertorials that are coming to support opposition. With an advertorial, Osun pensioners are making political statements that portray them as rookies of partisan interests. The state’s pensioners should learn to make demands without playing politics with it. The advertorial goes beyond the demand for the payment of pensioners, but an outright political demand to squeeze and stifle the government to make it easy prey for the opposition in the 2018 governorship election, which is the real motive of the leadership of the pensioners’ association.”
There are concerns of widespread inducement and pre-election vote-buying in which the pensioners are involved. The pensioners were bought in the last Osun West Senatorial bye-election. The pre-election vote-buying has taken the pensioners to the streets of Osogbo to blackmail Governor Aregbesola. The opposition party in the state having spent seven and a half years and having little or nothing to show for it resorted to peddling falsehood. Sponsored pensioners pre-election protest and pre-election vote buying have turned Osun pensioners into mischief makers by embarking on needless and stage-managed protests to portray Osun government bad and undermine efforts at resolving the pension issue. The government is not only committed to clearing the backlog of pension arrears, but also instituting a new regime where retirees’ entitlements are not delayed. The protest was an orchestration by disgruntled elements and their political allies designed to undermine the effort of the government to resolve the pension issue. The sponsored pensioners were protesting under the guise of agitating for pension payment, disrupt law and order, particularly when there is sufficient evidence showing that they are being sponsored by anti-development agents and mischievous members of the opposition, who have refused to accept the verdict of the people.
Pensioners in Osun State hit the streets of Osogbo because pre-election vote-buying has started in Osun, the state capital, again on Tuesday to stage a fresh protest against the non-payment of their pensions and gratuities. Osun pensioners have been bought by the opposition and they have started the blackmail and campaign of calumny against Governor Aregbesola. The retirees said the state government owed them 18 months’ pensions because of the modulated payment policy since 2015, adding that many of them who retired since 2011 had not been paid their gratuities. Apart from their penchant for raising false alarms, the leaders of the pensioners are known for making threats before major elections.
Involvement and participation of these older persons in the present politics against the government reflect the extent to which they are alienated from Osun society. In the last one year, an illegal political party of pensioners has emerged in Osun State. However, they suffered complete defeat because they have allowed the opposition party to use them against the good people of Osun. The pensioners group who took advertorial has been bought over by the opposition to promote their selfish interests during Osun 2018 election. It is unrealistic for Osun pensioners to be used as a political party to criticise the government. The group is becoming a destructive problem since there is no strong opposition in Osun. The pensioners are no longer interested in issues affecting their welfare but they are now involved in the issues of political parties as it relates to internally displaced persons camp and others.
It is clear that the so-called pensioners group were hired at several occasions to stage protests during Governor Aregbesola’s mother’s burial and few days to the Osun West Senatorial bye-election. Their incessant political protests are unbecoming of retired civil servants who ought to be respected as senior citizens. We know the set of pensioners that are protesting, it is not the entire pensioners of the state. The pensioners are being used by political blackmailers. Instead of engaging in dialogue with the government on issues bothering their minds on to how their benefits would be paid, they resorted to a militant approach that is known to be orchestrated by the opposition in the state, engaging in telling lies and character assassination that are capable of destabilizing the peace of the state. It is disturbing and unfortunate that the acclaimed retires have chosen to be blackmailing the Osun State government and persistently constituting nuisance on the streets of Osogbo to the detriment of the peace-loving citizens through sponsored protests on the payment of gratuity and not pension. I want to describe the protest by some pensioners in Osun state as politically motivated. It is connected with the forthcoming 7th year anniversary of Aregbesola’s government in Osun State, January 2018 local government election and September 2018 governorship election in Osun.
But the Commissioner for Information, Mr Adelani Adepegba, in a statement issued to react to the protest, described the protesting pensioners as paid mischief-makers. The statement read: “No genuine retired workers in the state will go out to protest on the lies and the political statement they call non-payment of pension and gratuity. Any pensioner that does that should be checked, he or she might be a paid mischief-maker and blackmailer. We wish to remind the general public that this set of pensioners were persistent in their show of shame and political gathering called protest between June and July last year when we were about to conduct the Osun West Senatorial District bye-election. They disappeared into thin air immediately after the election. Seeing them on the street this time round is not surprising, they have been obviously paid to blackmail the government like they did a year ago.” Aregbesola’s administration has been widely acknowledged a second to none in the country just as the Elementary School Feeding and Health Programme has won several local and international recognitions and as awards.
- Donald writes in from Osogbo, Osun State
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