Must we watch our pensioners go hungry before be pay then what rightfully belong to them? This is the question am asking after seeing a member of the Nigerian Union of Pensioners who retired from the Nigerian Postal Service, Silifatu Adetola, slumped on Monday during a protest at Lafiaji Post Office, Obalende, Lagos.
After Silifatu Adetola was revived by her other aggrieved protesters, all she kept saying was she was yet to eat anything that day. Sad, really sad.
It has become the norm of the day in our dear country Nigeria to constantly see our pensioner take to the street, protesting the non payment of their entitlement after working for decades of years. Isn't it disheartening to owe those who gave their all for service 69 months arrears? This is really ridiculous and painful to imagine that someone who is in a position to pay the decide to do otherwise.
Chairman of the Lagos chapter of the union, Akindutire gave his own account of the sad situation, “The government owes us
69 months of pension arrears. Most of us came here on empty stomach.
That woman could have died because the government did not see us as
important enough to pay what they owe us after serving meritoriously for
years.
“We will not leave the place until we
get an alert that our pension arrears have been paid. Some of us retired
as far back as 2005. Some were paid while some were not. Even those who
were paid got a fraction of what they were owed.
“I retired in 2006 and got just a little
out of the pension the government owed me since then. The same thing is
applicable to other members of the union.”
The protest i hear also took place in other post office branches in Apapa and the Lagos Island and some other states.
I call on Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) to come to the aid of these people, even if it means to go on nation wide strike. Enough is enough.
No comments:
Post a Comment