16th July, 2011
The Nigeria Union of Pensioners, NUP, has requested for an upward review of the monthly pension for its members to N16,000 each.
NUP said its members also deserve to benefit from the new N18,000 minimum wage being paid workers nationwide.
The Union in a communique issued at the end of their Council Meetingheld at the Ogun State NUP office in Abeokuta and signed by both the State Chairman and the Secretary, Kessington Odukoya and Bola Lawal, respectively, said there have been spiral inflation which does not exclude the pensioners.
”We all buy from the same market,” the union said, and urged the Federal Government to consider the plight of the pensioners and review the pension upward to N16,000 minimum per month.
Also, the NUP decried the plight of some of its members who, after the biometric exercise in June 2010, no longer get their monthly pension regularly.
It siad some pensioners are now paid haphazardly, thereby throwing them into deep poverty and untimely death.
It called on the Federal Government to decentralise the payment of the pensions, saying a situation where members had to travel to Abuja to access their pension was very risky and too cumbersome.
The communique also called on the Federal Government to find a lasting solution to the payment of all outstanding monthly pensions, in order to avert unpleasant action by pensioners throughout the country.
NUP added that some pensioners who retired as far back as year 2000 had not collected their gratuity and monthly pension up till now.
The Union however appealed to the government on humanitarian ground to consider their fate as they had dissipated their energy to serve this country and should not be treated disdainfully.
By Abiodun Onafuye/Abeokuta