By Ikechukwu Nnochiri
ABUJA — Reprieve has come the way of disengaged staff of the Nigeria Telecommunications Limited, NITEL, as a Federal High Court in Abuja, on Friday, okayed lifetime pension for them.

The high court which delivered judgment in a suit filed before it  by the NITEL Pensioners Association Incorporated, in 2007, specifically ordered the Federal Government to start paying them pension forthwith, stressing that doing otherwise would amount to a deliberate breach on their constitutional right.

Justice Dan Abutu who faulted an earlier decision by the Federal Government to pay them only three years pension, insisted that such action would contravene provisions of the Pensions Act.

Justice Abutu held that the pensioners having spent their entire life serving the government in various capacities deserve to be paid their pension entitlements for life.

Consequently he ordered the federal government to pay them accordingly. Immediately after the judgment was delivered on Friday, the pensioners who besieged the court room in their numbers started jubilating, even as some of them could not hide their tears of joy.

Speaking to news_men at the end of the proceeding, the General Secretary of the NITEL Pensioners Association Incorporation, Mr Moses Olabode, bemoaned the fact that some of their members have died in hardship without having the opportunity to enjoy the fruits of their servitude. He pleaded with the government to ameliorate their hardship by obeying the court order.