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The Coalition of Federal Pensioners of Nigeria has threatened a nationwide bare protestation connected October 6 if the authorities fails to instrumentality pension increments and palliatives.
The coalition’s National Chairman, Mr Mukaila Ogunbote, announced this during a quality league connected Tuesday successful Lagos.
Ogunbote, who besides chairs the Nigeria Union of Pensioners, NIPOST Chapter, stated that pensioners had fixed the authorities until September to settee arrears, increments, and palliatives.
He warned that nonaccomplishment to enactment would permission the pensioners with nary prime but to embark connected a nationwide bare protestation connected October 6.
According to him, the protestation would symbolically exposure authorities failures and item pensioners’ grievances earlier the public.
Ogunbote recalled that successful October 2023, President Bola Tinubu approved N35,000 for workers and N25,000 for pensioners arsenic palliatives.
He said workers received their outgo wrong 1 period of approval, yet pensioners were inactive waiting for theirs astir a twelvemonth later.
Ogunbote noted that workers had since demanded and received further palliatives for 10 months, portion pensioners’ requests for six months’ worthy remained unmet.
He said President Tinubu had besides directed an summation of N13,000 successful pensions, but nary implementation had followed from the Ministry of Finance oregon the Accountant-General.
“When we enquired, we were told our N32,000 increment was omitted from some the 2024 and 2025 budgets. This is injustice,” Ogunbote declared.
Mr Fashola Oluwo, a retiree from the Federal Ministry of Information, urged questioning of officials who failed to instrumentality the President’s directive.
Oluwo lamented that pensioners inactive struggled contempt the increment being inadequate for the rising outgo of surviving successful Nigeria.
He said galore retirees could not spend indispensable medication, portion immoderate had died waiting for their pension increases.
Another pensioner, Mrs Dupe Ogunniyi of FRCN, appealed to the First Lady to intervene with the President connected behalf of retirees.
She said galore pensioners were supporting unemployed postgraduate children and relied solely connected their pensions for survival.
Mr Adebola Akinduture, erstwhile Chairman of the Lagos NUP, stressed that hunger was the cardinal grievance of the retirees.
“We are hungry. Food is medicine, yet without it, medicine is meaningless. Pensioners are starving,” Akinduture said.
He vowed that pensioners would instrumentality to the streets bare connected Oct. 6 if the authorities ignored their demands.
The station Pensioners endanger nationwide ‘naked protest’ implicit unpaid benefits appeared archetypal connected Vanguard News.
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