By Chris Chimezie
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It was cheering news for retired workers and pensioners in Ondo State yesterday as the Governor, Arakunrin Oluwarotimi Akeredolu (SAN) has promised that the state will start clearing accumulated gratuities of retired workers and the remaining arrears of pension as from January, next year.

Akeredolu stated this in Akure while addressing the state retirees on the occasion of National Pensioners’ Day celebration with theme: “Pension Without Tension, Without Tears: A Task That Must Be Accomplished By The Union In The Years Ahead”.

Represented by his Special Adviser on Labour Matters, Mr Alaba Isijola, the governor said necessary machineries were being put in place to ensure that pensioners in the state receive their pension and gratuities regularly.

Majority of retired workers since 2011 are yet to collect their gratuities while local government pensioners are also being owed three months pension and state pensioners are being owed one month pension.

Akeredolu said, “We inherited seven months pension arrears from the previous administration, but as at today, we have cleared almost everything. On the gratuities, the government has mapped out strategies of paying affected pensioners as from January (2019). So rest assured that Mr Governor will not promise what he cannot do. His love for workers and our fathers- retirees is unequalled”.

The governor said that welfare of pensioners was very paramount to his administration, hence the decision to approve three of the requests of the state chapter of the Nigeria Union of Pensioners (NUP) when its leadership visited him recently.

In an address, the state chairman of the Nigeria Union of Pensioners (NUP), Chief Raphael Adetuwo called on President Muhammadu Buhari and state governors to implement a section of the 1999 constitution that compels upward review of their pension to enable them cope with the economic reality in the country.

Adetuwo noted that continuous violation of Section 173 subsection 3 and 210 (3) of the Constitution by government had exposed many retirees to untold hardship as some of them collect ridiculous pension like two to five thousand naira monthly.

He said, “Besides, it is inhumane that there are still some pensioners whose monthly pension is less than N5, 000 while many receive over N500, 000 monthly”.

Adetuwo lamented that the thirty percent pension increase approved in 2014 was yet to be implemented by both the federal and state governments.

The NUP Chairman who commended Governor Akeredolu for paying their pension regularly since he assumed office, urged him to offset accumulated gratuities of many pensioners and harmonise the discrepancies in the monthly pension of retirees.

“Non-harmonisation of pension is another painful issue to pensioners. A grade one principal of a school who retired in 1986 received N40,000 per month while his counterpart who retired in 2013 received N250,000 monthly”.

“It is our belief that if there is a minimum wage, there must also be a minimum pension and people who are retired on the same post and the same grade level ought to be earning the same monthly pension, no matter the number of years separating their time or date of retirement”, the pensioners’ chairman said.

Adetuwo joined the call for the creation of Ministry of Pension Affairs by the Federal Government to resolve various challenges of the senior citizens with more pragmatic approaches nationwide.