Yabatech Pensioners Protest

Yaba College of Technology pensioners, Lagos, Southwest Nigeria, have cried to President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan to call on National Insurance Corporation of Nigeria, NICON, to pay their three years pension arrears amounting to N138,647,148.40.

The pensioners under the aegis of Association of Nigeria Polytechnic Pensioners, ANPP, Yabatech chapter, staged a protest on Thursday morning to press home their request.

Comrade Wilson A.Oshinde, the pensioners’ chairman, in his speech during the protest said some of the issues they wanted the government to address include, pulling out polytechnic pensioners from the unified pension scheme, non-payment and delay of monthly pension by NICON Insurance, payment of 36 months of pension arrears owed their members by NICON and payment of 12 months pension arrears which they said the Insurance company had received since 30 September, 2011, but yet to received by the pensioners.

Comrade Erick Anosie, the General Secretary of the pensioners said’ “we have been owned for some months and the increases that have been paid to other pensioners since 2001has not been paid to them.”All our efforts to get these money paid has not been materialized as the government has refused to respond to all our appeal, some of us have died, some of us are sick and they do not have money to treat themselves.

“We are Nigerians who served the country meritoriously and we do not deserve what is being melted out to us. We therefore appeal to government to look into their plight.”

Mrs. Elizabeth Abiodun Aluko, one of protesting pensioners, said NICON has been holding them to ransom by not releasing their pension on time.

She urged the federal government to pay them directly or through National Board for Technical Education, NBTE.

The pensioners appealed to the president to look into their plight and treat them with all urgency it deserved.

“We implore Mr. President and other top government functionaries who have a say on pension matter to seriously look into the plight of the pensioners of the polytechnics nationwide and treat the matter with urgency in the interest of the senior citizens of this nation,” the pensioners pleaded.

—Paul Sanusi