Pensioners protest non-payment of 42 months arrears in Kano

Retired federal civil servants yesterday staged a peaceful protest in Kano, over the failure of government to settle their 42 months pension arrears

The pension who converged at the Bayero University, old site campus lamented that the ugly situation had led to the death of about 300 pensioners in the last two years.

The pensioners include retired staff of Bayero University Kano, Federal College of Education, Kano, Dala Orthopedic Hospital, Federal College of Education, Bichi, Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital (AKTH) and Nigeria Television Authority (NTA), Kano.

Spokesman of the pensioners, Malam Muhammad Isa, who is also the chairman, Federal University Pensioners Association (FUPA), Bayero University chapter told journalists shortly after their demonstration that the union passed a vote of no confidence on Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD), describing the activities of the body as fraudulent and unpatriotic.

According to the spokesman, “we have no confidence in PTAD because they said they were going to pay us six months arrears, but when we got alert it was our normal monthly pension stipend.

“You will be surprise to hear that the text message PTAD were sending to us indicated that the payment was suppose to be the 33 per cent arrears, whereas it was not so. This is fraud of the highest order and we want President Muhammadu Buhari to investigate this and ensure our prompt payment.”

He spoke further, “we pensioners have served this country diligently, and we are aged and most of us are on medical drugs.

“We are no longer employed and we don’t have any regular means of income. We can no longer pay our children school fees, we can no longer provide for our families. We massively voted for President Buhari in 2015 and we appeal to him to use his good office to ensure the release of funds for the payment of our arrears.”

But our worry is that the 2017 remains only one month to run out and still yet, the pension arrears have not been paid to the pensioners. The entire pensioners want Mr. President to use his authority to prevail on PTAD to pay our outstanding 33 per cent pension arrears before the year runs out.”