Benin City, Edo State capital, on Wednesday came under the siege of pensioners, who trooped out in their hundreds in protest against the non-payment of their gratuities, years after they retired from service.

The senior citizens blocked all the adjoining roads to Ring Road, the city centre, forcing motorists and other road users to meander their ways amidst the heavy vehicular and human traffic.

To underscore their predicaments, the protesting senior citizens, majority of who retired more than 15 years ago, were cladded in all black attire, as a symbol of the parlous states of their individual economy.

The senior citizens said the current administration of Governor Godwin Obaseki did not continue the payment of their gratuities from 2012, where the last administration of Comrade Adams Oshiomhole stopped.

The Oshiomhole government, it would be recalled, started the payment of gratuities from 1998 till 2012 as at the time he left office in 2016.

A leader of the pensioners of the protesters, Amadin Okoro, said “We are aggrieved; a lot of us are dying. A lot of us are not well, many of them are supposed to go for operations, no money.

“Besides gratuity, local government retirees are owed arrears and their gratuities since 2008. But for the state, it has not paid since 2012 till date.

“Our appeal to the governor is that he should pay us so that we can enjoy the fruits of our labour, which we suffered for 35 years. In fairness we receive our pensions monthly but the crux of the matter is our gratuity,” he stressed.

Also speaking, another protester, Esther Ehigie, lamented that while she retired in 2012, and was screened alongside others, nothing had been done despite that in 2017, those in her category were invited for a meeting, where the ‘Authority for Payment’, otherwise known as ‘Yellow Paper’ was collected from them.

Reacting to the development, the Commissioner for Communication and Orientation, Chris Osa Nehikhare, said the government of Governor Godwin Obaseki had been paying the gratuities of all those who retired since he became governor and that provision had already been made to clear the backlog.

According to him, “We have gone very far to tackle the backlog. We made promises to the pensioners that they we will pay their arrears which we have done. We made promise that they will get their pensions as at when due, that we have done, the third leg of that is to clear the gratuity arrears, which is a huge sum of money.

“We have a plan in place which is coming to fruition in the 2023 budget. We made provision to clear some of these gratuities and those pensioners have been put in batches so that they can be paid and very soon this will be effected. We implore our pensioners to exercise more patience and restraint while the issues are being sorted out,” Nehikhare pleaded.

In a related development, the Edo State Government has also reiterated the commitment of Governor Godwin Obaseki-led administration to solve pension issues in the state, suing for patience among pensioners as the government resolved the lingering challenges.

A statement endorsed by the Special Adviser to Governor Obaseki on Media Projects, Crusoe Osagie, noted that the government had shown good faith by solving two out of the three major issues affecting pensioners in the state.

“It is instructive to note that when the Governor Obaseki-led administration came into office in 2016, the pension related challenges in the state were three-pronged.

“They include unpaid pension arrears running into over N4bn; failure to harmonise pension payment and the issue of outstanding gratuities owed pensioners.

“These issues dated back to 2010 and the government at that time failed to address the challenges, leading to accumulation of a backlog of pension arrears and gratuities. It is necessary to emphasize that these problems predate the current administration.

“Of these three major challenges that pensioners in Edo State faced, the Obaseki-led government took the bold step to successfully address two and is hard at work in solving the last of them, which is clearing outstanding gratuities,”the statement assured.

Crusoe argued that “The government has cleared the backlog of arrears and ensured the implementation of the Contributory Pension Scheme to check a repeat of the ugly trend and has also harmonized pension payment – which had lingered for over 20 years – ensuring that pensions are better paid in line with current realities in Edo State.

“We urge pensioners in the Edo State to be patient and show good faith as the government’s commitment to their welfare has never been in doubt.

“It should bring some hope and succor that in the last six years, the government has solved two of the issues and is at the verge of sorting the challenges with clearing gratuities.

“It is for this reason that we call for calm and urge them to be assured of the government’s resolve to solve all outstanding issues,”the statement entreated.

(Nigerian Tribune)

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