PHCN pensioners protest in Kwara

Stephen Oni/Ilorin

Scores of members of Nigeria Union of Pensioners, Electricity Sector, Kwara State chapter, on Monday protested against the alleged non-payment of their salaries and other entitlements.

The pensioners who protested at the front gate of the office of the Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company Plc, at Challenge area, Ilorin, chanted songs calling on the federal government and the Board of Nigeria Electricity Liability Management, GTE/LTD, to address their grievances.

Their placards read: ‘FG & NEMCO please pay our monthly pension and gratuity and other benefits’, ‘FG, let your agreement of 2012 prior to privatisation of PHCN stand. We are old people. You too will be old.’ ‘FG be sympathetic and pay us our entitlement and other benefits,’ and NELMCO/FG, we are old people. Don’t let us die.’

The protesters, however, did not obstruct human and vehicular traffic within the company as they did not block the entrance to the IBEDC, Challenge Unit office.

The Kwara State Chairman, NUP, Electricity Sector, Mr. John Abiodun, while addressing journalists in Ilorin decried the hardship the alleged non-payment of their salaries and other entitlements had subjected them to.

According to him, many of the workers were sick,adding that they could no longer foot the bills for their basic needs and appealed to the government and the concerned authorities to please ensure that their salaries and entitlements among other demands were paid and promptly too.