Pensioners in Abia on Thursday afternoon blocked a busy road in Umuahia, the state capital, during a peaceful protest they staged to press home their demand on the inability of the state government to pay them their over one pension arrears.

They accused the State Governor, Dr Okezie Ikpeazu, of denying them the fruits of their labour by denying them prompt payment of their pensions, add that the situation has reduced them to mere walking corpses.

The pensioners blocked the busy Umahia-Bende Road which leads to Arochukwu, Bende and Ohafia local government areas as well as Cross River and Ebonyi states, thus holding up traffic for hours as a way of drawing the attention of the public to their plight.

It took the intervention of the combined team of the men of Umuahia

Central Police Station, led by its Divisional Police Officer, Onyeke Udeviotu, and the Abia State Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Ogbonnaya Nta. to convince the protesters to lift their siege on the road which links the state’s Sub-Treasury on School Road.

The duo met the pensioners sitting on chairs on the federal road and began appealing to them to vacate the road.

Speaking with newsmen, the Umuahia North branch chairman of the National

Union of Pensioners, Deacon Daniel Amaugo, accused the present government in the state of being insensitive to their plight, revealing that many of their members have died as a result of the inability of government to pay them their pensions.

Amaugo said: “We as the pensioners of the state are saying, if the governor wants to shoot us, let him go ahead and kill me and my colleagues, after all with the way he is treating our case, are we not dead already?

“The pensioners are dying daily because of lack of money, as I am here now, he owes me 12 months pension just like my colleagues and it should not be so as we are asking for what belongs to us.

“There are people who have patients in the hospital but cannot secure their release. We served this state for more than 35 years, suffered; and now we cannot eat the fruit of our labour. This is very bad. We are hungry and dying on daily basis and those of us who are tenants can no longer pay their rent because they are not being paid.

“Our demand now is that he should come and pay us.”

According to Amaugo, the union had earlier written to the state governor on the issue and who was yet to respond, stressing that they feel neglected by the actions of Governor Ikpeazu.

•Photo by Boniface Okoro shows pensioners blocking the two lanes of Bende Road . . . on Thursday in Umuahia.

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