Some 6,000 pensioners who retired in Nasarawa state are protesting failure of the council authorities to pay their gratuity for 10 years.
They carried placards on Tuesday that read, ‘save our souls, ‘Governor Abdullahi Sule save us from hunger’.
“Some of our members had died of hunger, cannot afford medical / children school fees resulting from bad treatments by Chairmen,” and official of the pensioners’ union, Adokwe Ladan said in Lafia.
“After serving the state meritoriously for 35 years, the authorities of local government councils had refused to pay our gratuity for over ten years now.
“We have diligently paid our dues in the cause of our service carrier and cannot be placed on second line charge to the advantage of political office holders.
“Our hopes lies with God and the state government in view of the hard conditions being subjected to due lack of gratuity and constant payment of pension.
“We have not yet received our March to April pension despite the effects of partial lockdown due to coronavirus pandemic,” said Ladan.
He explained that the assembly should review the monthly remittance upward from the present 15 percent in line with current realities.
He said that the government should also increase their monthly minimum pension and ensure prompt payment of their pension.
He therefore called on the governor to intervene if not the Chairmen would give his administration a bad name.
It took the intervention of the Deputy Governor, Emmanuel Akabe to calm the pensioners.
He said that it was wrong for pensioners not to be paid their monthly pension and therefore promised to meet with the representatives of the pensioners and the LG Chairman to find a lasting solution to the problem.
Similarly, Aminu Maifata, State Chairman of Association of Local Government of Nigeria (ALGON) said that the various local government councils were not owing any outstanding pension as it was being alleged.
Maifata explained that the law stipulated that they remit 15 percent of their allocations to the pension bureau and they have done that up to April.
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