9,000 retirees demand payments of entitlements one year after compulsory retirement in Kaduna

No fewer than 9,000 civil servants who were compulsory retired by the Kaduna state government in 2017 have called on Governor Nasiru El-Rufai to settled their entitlements.

Addressing a press conference on Thursday in Kaduna, Secretary of the retirees under auspices of Restructured Civil Servants of Kaduna state, Ahmed Muazu, said the call became imperative because the governor had consistently claimed that he has paid the retirees.

“We have been pressed to make this pronouncement as result of the several pronouncements by Governor El-Rufai in the media that he has paid everybody. When he made such pronouncement, we became shocked.

“We wish to inform the general public and with due respect to Governor El-Rufai who made several pronouncements in the media that all of us have been paid.

“ We now request the governor or any other person to reach to any of our pension administrators and find out if any of the over nine thousand officers who were compulsory retired from the civil service of Kaduna state was given a dine; as they always say they are waiting for the governor. This is our predicament,” Muazu said.

He revealed that the affected staff are officers who have less than two years to retire and majority are either Directors and Deputy Directors who have served for over thirty years and already getting tired of waiting for their retirement benefits.

“It may interest  the governor to know that a sizeable number of our colleagues have died, some are paralyzed and many are hypertensive. All these happen suddenly as there was no notice, no leakage and majority were not ready for the retirement and have no money in their pockets, yet their entitlements are not paid.

“We have begin to lose control of our families because we cannot feed them nor cloth them. We cannot pay their school fees just as we are like every other persons; we have children in primary and secondary schools, as well as tertiary institutions.  WAEC and NECO have started registration of potential candidates and our children are at home due to our inability to pay the charges,” he said.

All efforts made to get the reaction of the Kaduna state government proved abortive as the Special Assistant to Governor El-Rufai on Media and Publicity Samuel Aruwan, declined to pick several calls made to his mobile line and did not replied text message sent him.