UPDATE: Aregbesola not ready to dialogue with us over our unpaid pension, gratuities ― Pensioners

THE chairman of the Nigeria Union of Pensioners (NUP), Osun State chapter, Mr Ganiyu Olasunkanmi Salawu, on Tuesday in Osogbo said Governor Rauf Aregbesola was not ready to re-open dialogue with his members over unpaid pension arrears and gratuities.

He said efforts made to reach the governor over the need to address hardship., being suffered by thousands of its members, including retired civil servants, under the forum of 2011/2012 Pensioners were not successful, saying it was imperative to pay the arrears of pension to avoid needless deaths, starvation and other forms of social and economic challenges.

Speaking with journalists while leading large numbers of retirees on a protest in Osogbo, Osun State capital, Salawu stated that “the majority of our people are dying of hunger, dying of starvation. We are being owed series of monies, our entitlements are not regular and they are not paid as at when due”.

According to him, We tried as much as possible to book an appointment for a dialogue with the governor around March and up till now, there is no acknowledgement of our letters. Thereafter we have written about five reminders about our plights, no response. There are some of us who have been ejected from our homes”.

We are being owed 133% increase, which was implemented around the year 2010. Up till now, no pensioner has been able to assess it. We have tried as much as possible to contact the government to look into our plight.

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He continued “142 % arrears have been implemented. Payment had been done for some time, but later it was stopped and after many consultations, the government agreed to pay these amounts in 30 monthly instalments. We agreed and out of the 30, only eight months are paid to us, remaining 22 months.

Reacting over the protest, Osun State Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Mr Adelani Baderinwa in a press statement forwarded to the Nigerian Tribune described the protesting pensioners as paid mischief makers blackmailers, who usually protest during electioneering period.

The statement reads thus, “no genuine retired workers in the state will go out to protest on the lies and the political statement they call nonpayment 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 the thin air immediately after the election. Seeing them on the street this time around is not surprising, they have been obviously paid to blackmail the government like they did a year ago. For record purpose, the government had in February this year especially paid pensions and gratuity to a total number of 2006 pensioners who retired from Ministries, Departments, Agencies and parastatals service in 2011/2012 when the government released a sum of N1.2bn for such purpose”.

“Cheques containing different amount of money was handed over to the pensioners by the Head of Service, Dr Oyebade Olowogboyega. Of the N1.2bn, a sum of N200m was used to paid gratuity while additional N200million was added in March for the payment of gratuity as well, making the total sum N400m for gratuity payment.