The Nigerian Union of Pensioners (NUP) has expressed displeasure over what it termed “bad treatment against senior citizens in the country,” calling on the federal and state governments to have a change of attitude.

The pensioners also demanded the three tiers of government to formulate policies that would address challenges faced by retirees. They also asked the national assembly to equip the constitution to compel state governors to pay pensions as at when due.

National President of NUP, Godwin Abumisi, when he read his Pensioners’ Day celebration address at Labour House Abuja over the weekend, asked President Muhammadu Buhari not to relent in making issues of gratuity and other entitlements a priority.

“Never will it be said again that Nigerian pensioners are spare tyres and they are old enough to die. We shall take our pride of place in this country, and stand firmly to claim our rights from the government of this nation that we have used our youthful strength to serve. Together in unity, we shall achieve our aims,” he said.

The union leader, who lashed at the state governors when he described them as “emperors”, noted that they have made lives unbearable for citizens.

“Our major challenges have been with the state governments, many of whom have become emperors in their various states. They govern with iron hands in a democratic setting like ours.

Many of them collapsed governance instruments together under their palm as the one-man all-powerful governor is the judiciary, the legislature and the executive put together

“I wish to place on records that the payment of monthly pension to the pensioners is a right, not a privilege. Unfortunately, the constitution does not prescribe any punishment for such erring governors who trained the pensioners with disdain,” he said.

Meanwhile, there was a mild drama during the NUP Day celebration where some retirees who identified themselves as members of Federal Civil Service Pensioners (FCSP) attempted to disrupt the gathering.

For about five minutes, the rowdy session at the venue of the celebration nearly stalled the programme before the intervention of the spokesman of NUP, Bunmi Ogunkolade, who appealed to the aggrieved retirees not to destabilise the programme.

Addressing journalists outside the venue of the programme, Chairman of FCSP, Sunday Omezi told newsmen they were aggrieved because the executive members of NUP did not carry them (the proposed breakaway faction of the union) along.

Omezi said “We are Federal Pensioners, and I believe that the person who stood up to ask the president why they didn’t call us has the right to ask his questions. We are stakeholders, they are calling others as stakeholders, we are not called federal pensioners as a stakeholder. That was why the person went and asked because we are the largest contributors to the NUP.”

Speaking further, Omezi maintained that his consistent efforts to correct NUP made the latter dissolve the National Executive Council of FCSPB and set up what he described as an “illegal caretaker committee.”

“The federal government should be able to obey the constitutional provision and review our pension,” Omezi said.

The FCSP chairman tasked pensioners in the country to unite so as to tackle the government over alleged neglect of their entitlements.

“Our wish for the Pensioners Day is that we pensioners should unite, we have one common enemy which is the federal government that has not been giving us our entitlements. We are supposed to collect our review in 2015 and 2020 but we don’t know what they are doing,” he said.

He called on the government to resolve FCSPB’s issue with NUP so that the former can start collecting its entitlements direct from PTAD just like other NUP affiliate bodies.

“We have an issue with check-up dues because NUP is shortchanging us by not giving us our rightful entitlements. This, we have long reported to our regulatory body being the Federal Ministry of Labour.

“NUP is not going through their constitution. The operations of NUP are contrary to the constitution and we dragged them before the Federal Ministry of Labour. They are supposed to remit 55 percent of the check-up due to us, take 35 percent and give Nigeria Labour Congress 10 percent which is altogether 100 percent.

“The NUP collects our money directly from PTAD and then give us whatever they like and our complaints to PETAD to stop this have not yielded positive result as PTAD said it doesn’t want to dabble into labour issue, saying it is the duty of the Federal Ministry of Labour to resolve our problem and the ministry is still conciliating.

“It directed us to go back and settle ourselves as according to it, it’s an internal issue adding that if we can’t do that, we should come back. We held a meeting with the ministry on the 22nd of November and the meeting ended up in deadlock, so we have reported back to the ministry, waiting for its action.

“We want the ministry to refer us to Industrial Arbitration Panel if they cannot solve the problem. If the Federal Ministry of Labour feels that we cannot work in harmony with the NUP, then they should refer us because we have all it takes to pull out, we are a federal union,” he said.

(Nigerian Tribune)

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