Members of the Nigeria Union of Pensioners (NUP) have called on the Federal Government to fulfill the pledge made to them in 2023, to cushion the effects of fuel subsidy removal.
They also called on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to issue a directive to the National Salaries, Income and Wages Commission to release an enabling circular for the new “minimum pension” in line with the recently signed minimum wage law for workers.
The government had last year promised to pay N35,000 and N25,000 to federal workers and the retirees respectively as wage awards for six months, starting from October last year, to serve as palliative.
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NUP’s spokesman, Bunmi Ogunkolade, speaking to newsmen at pensioners’ headquarters in Abuja on Tuesday, explained that pensioners had made different appeals to the government through appropriate authorities but their pleas were yet to be attended to.
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“We’ve written several letters to the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation. We’ve paid different courtesy visits to the ministry to no avail. We were told that our matter was hanging because of what happened in the ministry.
“We’ve also lodged our complaints to the National Assembly. We met with the Chairman, House Committee on Pension. We’re using this medium again to appeal to them to give us the wage award and resolve the issue of minimum pension,” Ogunkolade said.
He however, acknowledged that pensioners had received 20% pension increment meant for January to August 2024 in their various bank accounts.
Appreciating the Federal government on behalf of NUP about the development, he said, “We are using this medium to appreciate the federal government led by President Bola Tinubu for fulfilling his promise to effect 20% increment on the monthly pension of our members. This is unprecedented.
“We hope that other two pending issues: palliative and ‘minimum pension’ as mentioned above would be attended to as well.”
