Former Labour Get together 2023 presidential candidate, Peter Obi, has slammed the federal authorities following a report that pensioners are planning a nationwide protest over unpaid pensions and gratuities.
Obi wrote in a tweet on Wednesday that it was unhappy that women and men who gave one of the best years of their lives to serve the nation are actually being pressured to think about protests to get what is because of them.
He questions why retirees stay unpaid regardless of President Bola Tinubu’s latest announcement that Nigeria had met its income goal.
Obi added that income development needs to be seen within the lives of abnormal folks, particularly these struggling to outlive.
Obe wrote, “I learn with deep concern that our pensioners, women and men who gave the best years of their lives in service to our nation, have been pushed to ponder a nationwide protest over unpaid arrears.
“Simply final month, Mr. President introduced that Nigeria had reached its income goal. If that’s true, then the ethical query is easy: why are our senior residents, who labored, served, and sacrificed, nonetheless owed their rightful pensions and gratuities? Income development ought to first replicate within the lives of the folks, particularly these in tough occasions.”
The previous Anambra governor famous that extra income “should not stay on paper” however the more money needs to be used to pay pensioners and restore their dignity, and to guarantee the working inhabitants that Nigeria values their labour and repair.
He added that “something much less is unjust and unacceptable.”
In the meantime, the Coalition of Federal Pensioners, led by its Nationwide Chairman, Mukaila Ogunbote, gave the federal government till the tip of September to settle arrears and implement the promised increments and palliatives.
Talking at a press briefing in Lagos, Ogunbote, who additionally heads the Nigeria Union of Pensioners, NIPOST Chapter, mentioned pensioners would embark on a unadorned protest throughout the nation on October 6 if the federal government didn’t act.
He recalled that in October 2023, President Tinubu authorized N35,000 as palliatives for staff and N25,000 for pensioners. Whereas staff obtained theirs inside one month, he mentioned, retirees are nonetheless ready almost a 12 months later.
“Staff demanded and obtained further palliatives for ten months, however pensioners’ requests for six months’ price haven’t been met,” he mentioned.
Ogunbote added that the President had additionally directed a rise of N13,000 in pensions, however no implementation had adopted from both the Ministry of Finance or the Workplace of the Accountant-Common.
“Once we enquired, we had been informed our N32,000 increment was omitted from each the 2024 and 2025 budgets. That is injustice,” he mentioned.
