The Nigeria Union of Pensioners (NUP) on Wednesday appealed to the federal government as well as the state government to ensure that all arrears owed pensioners are paid before the 2015 election.
NUP President, Comrade Abel Afolayan, who was speaking in Abuja, said that should the President and governors fail to pay the arrears owed pensioners; such elected public officers will lose the support of its members in the general elections.
His words, “Between now and the election period, we want our outstanding arrears to be paid so that our people will not die. We are also saying that those governors that want pensioners to die, we will not support them.”
Afolayan urged the Ministry of Finance and the budget office to release funds to the Pension Transition Arrangement Department (PTAD) to enable them pay the pensioners.
The union also backed the PTAD, describing it as a child of necessity.
The NUP President reiterated the union’s determination to work with the new pension authority and pledged its unalloyed support to it in a bid to ameliorate the living condition of pensioners.
According to him, “the management of PTAD should step up efforts in the payment of some outstanding arrears of pensions of various categories. They should pay the new enrollees as well as payment of pension and death gratuities to deserving pensioners in order to convince the apprehensive pensioners of its action plan as well as prove its critics and skeptics wrong of its programmmes and activities.”
Afolayan also warned unauthorised persons making statement on behalf of the union to desist from that.
“That, for the umpteenth time, we wish to reiterate that the likes of E. A. Omoyemi, David Adodo and Pa Chukwurah who are parading themselves as the self-acclaimed leaders of the union are doing so illegally and unconstitutionally as they are neither the voice of the pensioners nor authorized to speak on behalf of the union on issues that border on the welfare and well-being of the civil service pensioners at all levels,” he said.
He also lambasted the group for requesting the federal government to bring back the former chairman of the disbanded Pension Reform Task Team (PRTT), Abdulrasheed maina, to either take over pension payment or to be co-opted to work with PTAD, insisting that, “we will resist that with the last drop of our blood.”
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