Aggrieved Nigeria Postal Service, NIPOST, pensioners have protested non-payment of some Pension Arrears and other entitlements owed to them by the Federal government.
The protesters who blocked the entrance of the NIPOST office in Akure, the Ondo state capital, carried various placards to express their grievances.
They lamented non payment of N32,000 pension increment, their removal from pension pay list since 2015, Non payment of N25,000 parliative of fuel subsidy by the Federal Government.
The pensioners described as disheartening that many of them had died for lack of money to take care of their medical bills and other needs.
Speaking on behalf of the protesters,
chairman of the Union of Nipost pensioners, Ondo State Branch, Comrade Stephen Duyilemi said the pensioners were tired of being treated like semi human beings.
He specifically alleged the office of the Accountant General of the Federation AG, the Federal ministry of Finance and the Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate, PTAD, of withholding their entitlements without any justification.
Duyilemi said, “During our screening exercise in 2019 at Osogbo, we submitted some documents to them, which relates to our grievances. Like some people were introduced to pension with short payments of some months.
“Many of us were short paid when we were introduced to pension, while other pensioners were paid on grade level five instead of level 10.
“Then since then, they have not corrected all these mistakes, which we are fighting for. Then especially the government pronounced that 32,000 Naira increments should be paid to us. And since August, when there was threatening, they paid us only one month.
“It has accumulated to nine months now. Then palliatives, which was given to everybody, even to the market women, which is N25,000, they promised us since some years back now, we have not been paid.
“We have some members whose names were omitted from the pay list of PTAD. We are making our grievances known to PTAD that what they are doing to us is wrong. PTAD is responsible for the payment of our pension.
“The 1997 set of pensioners were given a letter of promotion, but they were not paid.
“Since then, they have not implemented the payment of that salary to us, because in 2nd January 2007, another salary structure came out, and we were not based on that salary, and that is what we are fighting for, that if they give us that one, it will even help us, because we buy the same thing from the market.
Many of us are dead because of lack of money to buy drugs, which caused the problem for many of us that were no longer in life now.
“We are appealing to the government to please look into our request and pay us, even if this message can get to the president, President Bola Tunubu, to please come to our aid.
“We pensioners are dying gradually. They are killing us by not giving us our rights. What is entitled to us as pensioners? We have served the country for 35 years.”
1 comment
It’s so sad that those that served the country for 35 years could not get their pension while the politicians who served 4 or 8 years and even enrich their self are getting fact pension including cars,housing etc every 4 years.
The government should look into the plight of the pensioners and stop turning their eyes away from their problems.
Long live Nigeria.