ADAMAWA, Nigeria — Pensioners in Adamawa State are appealing to the state government to revise their meagre N4,000 monthly pension, which they contend is far too insufficient to maintain a basic standard of living.
The president of the state’s Nigeria Union of Pensioners, NUP, Mohammed Sali, made the plea on Saturday, July 22, 2023, who depicted a desperate picture of elderly citizens struggling to afford food and medicine on an inadequate pension.
“At present in Adamawa State, the monthly pension is only N4,000. Relate this to the life we have to live,” Sali told journalists.
He added, “Our staple food here is maize. One bag of maize today is N40,000. Now, what can a pensioner eat. How can he buy medicine?”
According to Sali, many pensioners, with the youngest among them being 60, must live on medicine, a necessity that comes with old age.
The current pension, he insists, is grossly inadequate for these needs.
Sali, appointed NUP chairman last year, couldn’t pinpoint when the N4,000 monthly pension was implemented but stated it dates back to at least a decade ago during the tenure of Governor Murtala Nyako, who held office from 2007 to 2014.
“We have been receiving this N4,000 pension since the government of Murtala Nyako, and pension is supposed to be reviewed every five years. When the minimum wage for serving civil servants get reviewed, pension remains. That has been the sad norm,” Sali explained.
The NUP chairman concluded his appeal by calling on the incumbent state governor, Ahmadu Fintiri, to address the issue.
“Governor Fintiri knows our cry and has promised to look at it. I am using this opportunity to urge him to fulfil the promise,” Sali implored.
Review Pension Or Face Mass Action – Pensioners Give Kebbi Gov’t Ultimatum
Babangida Garba Gwandu, the Kebbi state chairman of pensioners pressure group, has commended the governor of Kebbi state Senator Atiku Bagudu for approving 6 bn for the payments of gratuities to Kebbi retired civil servants.
Gwandu who gave the commendations at his residence in Birnin Kebbi added that the group are happy that Bagudu responded to the plight of Kebbi retirees who are passing through hell with a good number of them down with various degrees of ailments due to depression caused by anxiety arising from a long waiting for their benefits.
He explained that, aside from gratuities payments which are part of their agitations, pension upward review remains a herculean task before the group as living pensioners in Kebbi still receives very poor pensions remunerations “most of the civil servants who retired from active service in the 80s and 90s receive 2000, 4000 and 3000 thousand as pensions.
According to him from Obasanjo to late Yaradua, Goodluck Jonathan and now Buhari governments have upward reviewed pensions to meet minimum wage of active civil servants but is not the case in Kebbi “there still exist a retired secretary to the state government whose name I will not mention receiving 30,000 as pensions and alot of retired directors receiving 10,000 and below as pension in the state.
Gwandu stated that the pressure group have resolved to give Kebbi state government an ultimatum of mid-February 2022 to upward review the poor pensions or face mass actions which are to invite all living pensioners to converge at eid praying ground in Birnin Kebbi to seeks God’s intervention in the lingering matter “we are retired, tired and weak so we are not gathering to foment trouble but to pray fervently to God to touch the heart of Bagudu to upward review our pensions he said.
The pressure group chief who dismissed the claim of being bankrolled by a certain political party stated that the group does not belong to any party but will remain steadfast in fighting the course of retired civil servants in Kebbi state.
