By Precious Oham
The Nigeria Union of Pensioners, NUP, Ekiti State Council, has called on the Ekiti State government to declare a state of emergency over the unpaid terminal benefits of Pensioners in the state else the union may resort to taking legal action against him.
The union decried the failure on the part of the state government to offset the gratuities and pensions owed its members since 2012 despite the promises made by the incumbent to defray all outstanding benefits before leaving office.
In a press briefing in Ado-Ekiti, on Monday, the Ekiti State NUP Chairman, Comrade Joel Akinola, appealed to Governor Kayode Fayemi to include pensioners in the planned payment of the terminal benefits to his sacked aides.
His words: “We want to seize this opportunity to appeal to His Excellency to look into the pathetic conditions of many of our members to include the payment of our members’ terminal benefits (gratuities and pensions) in the planned payment of the terminal benefits of his sacked aides.
“It should be noted that our members have been in the waiting list fot long. The last payments were made to those who retired in September 2012 and August 2013 for Local Government and the State Pensioners respectively. And we are in 2022. It has been a long wair indeed.
“The union is suggesting that the State Government should declare a State of Emergency on payment of Terminal Benefits of Pensioners. We suggest that the monthly allocation be increased to 500million and be made regular.”
While appreciating the state government for regular payment of their monthly pensions, they urged them to offset the outstanding arrears of pensions, backlog of unpaid gratuities, review their monthly pensions in conformity with section 210, subsection 3 of the 1999 Nigeria Constitution and non remittance of check-off dues.
They also noted that the consequences of the non payment of the terminal benefits had caused untimely deaths to her members resulting from inability to access medical care and feeding, break up of homes, drop out of children from schools and abject state of depression and hopelessness.