PENSIONERS in Nasarawa State yesterday decried the untold hardship being experienced due to the decision of the state government to delist their names from the Payment Voucher (PV).

INDICATIONS emerged yesterday that the First Bank of Nigeria (FBN) Limited pensioners would soon begin to heave a sigh of relief just as they have met the bank’s management to fashion out lasting solutions to the unnecessary and avoidable issues revolving around pension scheme.

THE Nigeria Union of Pensioners, NUP,   in Oyo State   has directed   its members   to withdraw from the ongoing verification exercise in the state   over the harsh   environment under which the initiative   was being carried out.

For thousands of retired civil servants, post-retirement life often remains traumatic, as they have to endure the grotesque experience of years of unpaid gratuities and pensions.

OUR collective sense of compassion may have become so dulled, overtime, to media reports and media images of emaciated senior citizens, collapsing after waiting endlessly in queues under the hot tropical sun, for verification and payment of pension entitlements.    In reality, the victims of this oppression, have no ethnic or religious colouration, but are all bound by the common index of social deprivation, while the rest of us discountenance the gross abuse of the dignity of aged men and women, who had served their country for most of their lives.