By Chidi Nkwopara, Anayo Okoli, Okonkwo Nwabueze, Francis Igata

IN Abia, the State chairman of Nigerian Union of Pensioners [NUP], Sir Chukwuma Ndubuisi Udensi said the pensioners are suffering. With a backlog of arrears ranging between 8 to 19 months, depending on ministries and parastatals involved, and an outstanding gratuity for 16 years, pensioners in Abia State are indeed going through painful endurance.

• Damian Ozoude, NUP Chairman, Enugu State Council

This problem cuts across all sections of the civil service in Abia, with workers who retired from the Abia State University Teaching Hospital, ABSUTH, being worst hit with pension arrears of 20 months. Records from the State NLC support the claims of the pensioners.

The chairman of the Abia State Labour Congress, NLC, Comrade Uchenna Obigwe, in an interview confirmed the position of the retired workers of Abia State. He said he was making effort to secure appointment with Governor Okezie Ikpeazu to discuss the matter and see how the problem could be solved.

When South East Voice attended a recent rally of the pensioners in the State, it was indeed a pitiable sight of sickly, hungry-looking old men and women, some of who were brought on wheel chairs to the rally. It was a heart-touching sight. According to Sir Udensi, the NUP chairman, who lamented the pitiable condition of his members, said many of them now have their children dropped out of school. He also lamented the paltry amount Abia pensioners receive as pensions in the state.

Udensi said that the problem of Abia pensioners escalated because for over 16 years no retired worker had been paid gratuity which is fairly a large amount of money which could enable a retired work to plan for his future before the pensions start coming. “If gratuities were paid to us, our members would have planned for their retirement and would not be passing through this hell. It is unfortunate”, the NUP leader lamented.

Touched by the pitiable living condition of the pensioners in the state, the NLC chairman publicly brought their plight to the attention of the Governor during this year’s May Day celebration.

Lamenting the huge debt owed pensioners in the State, Obigwe said: “Our governor, this is outrageous more so when one x-rays the plight of these pensioners who had spent their youthful age in the development of the state”, and reminded him that “the payment of gratuities were last done in Abia State over 15 years ago”, a situation he said brings fear to prospective retirees in the State.

Prospective retirees

When the bailout was secured, the pensioners had their hopes raised that they would benefit from it but Udensi said “no pensioner in Abia State received a dime from the bailout fund.” Udensi disclosed that some of his members still receive ridiculous amounts as little as N450, N1000 and N2000, as pension, because they were not awarded all the previous percentage increments civil servants received as the law demands. “What we are receiving is too small, yet we don’t see it. These are old men and women, they can’t feed, attend to their health needs and of course some of their children cannot go to school. This is our plight here, only God will save us”, the NUP chairman lamented.

According to him, if the State Government has implemented past increments, pensioners in the State would not be receiving as little as N450. Udensi also lamented several failed efforts they have made to meet with Governor Ikpeazu but had always been frustrated by his protocol officers. However, the State Government said it has the welfare of the pensioners at heart but could not offer immediate solutions because of paucity of funds, saying that the Government was not deliberately penalising them.

The State Commissioner for Finance, Mr. Obinna Oriaku who painted a helpless economic position of the Government, said that as soon as funds are available, the arrears would be cleared gradually. He said some of the pensioners were paid last week. According to him, the State’s allocation is now around N1.7 billion for a state with a wage bill of N3.5 billion and overhead cost. He said that people ask why the Government was constructing roads without paying salary and pensions, but explained that they owe the contractors too.

“We are drawing on our goodwill we have with the contractors, we owe them, but they know we will pay them when we get money,” he said,  and appealed to the pensioners to exercise patience.    Anambra:Nigerian pensioners worked like lions and died without pension

In Onitsha, the commercial city of Anambra state and its environs, it has been a recurring decimal and   bad omen that pensioners are being neglected in the Nigerian contest. From federal, state and local government  levels, down to parastatals, military and para-military, pensioners who are regarded as senior citizens are never remunerated commensurately, by successive government administrations.

In the old Anambra state, pensioners of the Nigerian Coal Corporation, NCC; and their counterparts in the Nigerian Railway Corporation, NRC are groaning under unpaid pension arrears. Late Mr. Josiah Okoronkwo who the colonial masters nicknamed Lion Okoronkwo because of his hard work  in days gone by at the NRC where he spent all his youthful life before the outbreak of the Nigerian/Biafra civil war in 1967, had to swallow the bitter pill of unpaid pension arrears before his death few years ago.

Though a native of Lokpaukwu community in Umunneochi Local Government Area of Abia State, Lion Okoronkwo spent greater part of his life working on a locomotive engine as a linesman in Benue state until the outbreak of the civil war.

Peasant farming

When the war ended, they were invited to NRC headquarters in Lagos where they were asked to indicate their willingness to either resume work or retire for pensions. Some healthy and younger ones chose to resume, while others, including Lion volunteered to retire. On retirement, he went back home, resorted to peasant farming and waited for the day their gratuities would be paid.

However, they were paid the gratuities and asked to go to Enugu every end of the month to collect their monthly pension which he and his fellow pensioners did for some years before they were owed arrears of pension. They were still owing him many months of arrears before he died and all efforts by his next of kin to collect his pension arrears proved abortive as they tossed his bereaved family members about.

According to his eldest son, Chief Reginald Okonkwo, “when our father died, we went and notified the NRC management at their Eastern zonal headquarters in Enugu and they referred me to Lagos Headquarters and when I went to Lagos, the then Funds Manager asked me to go back to Enugu and wait for a day funds will be made available.

“Eventually, when I heard that funds had been provided for the pension arrears in Enugu, I went there to collect my father’s arrears and they demanded many documents ranging from court affidavits from all his sons and wife or wives, saying that they want to avoid a situation where after giving me his entitlements, some other person would come up and claim to be his son, second wife or even third wife in the case of a polygamous family.

“By the time I went for all those things, the funds had finished and they collected all the documents, put them in the file for unclaimed pensions and told me to go home and wait for another turn and that is where we are today. So, it is unfortunate that my father worked for Nigeria as a Lion and was denied his pension before and after his death”.

Pension arrears

Also Mrs. Okafor, wife of late Mr. Gilbert Okafor, another pensioner who retired in the railway complained bitterly that her late husband’s pension arrears were not paid before and after his death till date, wondering why our senior citizens are being treated with levity.

In Anambra state, erstwhile workers in the state civil service have lost more than 3,000 of its members since the year 2000, following non-payment of their entitlements after retirement. Leaders of the Nigeria Union of Pensioners, NUP,  expressed regret that for about 10 years, the Federal Government has not implemented the constitutional provision of increasing pensions after every five years.

According to their leaders, “Since their retirement, pensioners in the state who retired since 2000 and beyond have not received their federal share of pensions and gratuities, adding, We have lost more than 3000 pensioners till date. These were people who had not received their benefits from the Federal Government since retirement”.

According to them, other problems facing the former workers include underpayment, omission of names in the nominal roll and fraudulent removal of pensioners’ accounts by employees of the Pensions Commission in Abuja. They contended that the pensioners had expected the Federal Government to increase the pension rates as they had done for the civil servants, noting that they buy from same markets, pay children’s school fees and settle other bills from their pay.