“Protesters are paid mischief makers, blackmailers” – Osun govt rebuke protesting pensioners
Pensioners in Osun State have on Thursday (today) continued their protest over unpaid entitlements.
The members of the state chapter of the Nigeria Union of Pensioners thronged the streets with placards and marched to the secretariat.
The state government has, however, labelled the protesters “paid mischief makers” and “blackmailers”.
In a statement obtained by Newsroom Thursday afternoon, the government said it had paid reasonable sums to pensioners in the state and the protesters are only “in pursuit of political matter”.
“No genuine retired workers in the state will go out to protest on the lies and political statement they call nonpayment of pension and gratuity. Any pensioner that does that should be checked, he or she might be a paid mischief maker and blackmailer,” the statement, signed by Baderinwa Adelani, the state Commissioner for Information and Strategy, reads.
“We wish to remind the general public that this set of pensioners were persistent in their show of shame and political gathering called protest between June and July last year when we were about to conduct the Osun West Senatorial District Bye election. They disappeared into the thin air immediately after the election. Seeing them on the street this time around is not surprising, they have been obviously paid to blackmail the government like they did a year ago.
“For record purpose, the government had in February this year specially paid pensions and gratuity to a total number of 2006 pensioners who retired from Ministries, Departments, Agencies and parastatals service in 2011/2012 when the government released a sum of N1.2bn for such purpose. Cheques containing different amount of money was handed over to the pensioners by the Head of Service, Dr Oyebade Olowogboyega. Of the N1.2bn, a sum of N200m was used to paid gratuity while additional N200million was added in March for the payment of gratuity as well, making the total sum N400m for gratuity payment.
“Also in May, a total sum of N200m was released for the payment of gratuities to retired officers on old pension scheme and another sum of N100million for the payment of contributory pensioners. The payment of the gratuity was done by the Head Service, Oyebade, on May 24 this year at the Local Government Service Commission Hall, Government Secretariat, Abere. The gratuity was paid to the senior civil citizens of the state who processed their papers at the Teachers’ Establishment and Pensions Office (TEPO), Secondary School Teachers, Parastatals as well as those from some Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs). A total of 720 retired public servants under the old scheme were also given part payment of their gratuity.
“Government wishes to call the attention of the good people of the State of Osun to the fact that the 2011/2012 group of pensioners does not represent the totality of pensioners in the state. The 2011/2012 pensioners are politicians and not pensioners. They are in pursuit of political matter.
“It amounts to ingratitude, mischief and politicization of fact to accused Aregbesola of not paying pension and gratuity by anybody. It is very unfortunate that some of our senior citizens allowed themselves to be used by politicians to disrupt the ongoing progress of the state.”
