Nigerian Pensioners threatens war over 10 years of unpaid benefits

Author: Victor Ulasi

Author: Victor Ulasi

It was a nightmare in Kaduna state, Nigeria last four weeks when the workers of New Nigeria Newspaper launched a dangerous demonstration to demand the payment of their seven months wages and benefits. The protest was an eye saw, which took the intervention of the Kaduna state Government to resolve as the media workers sealed off the company with violence. The Pensioners of New Nigeria Newspaper have said that what happened last four weeks was a child play and the company should be ready for war, as they will not only burn down the company but bloods will flow this time around. There are strong indications that the ailing New Nigeria Newspapers may go off the streets again, the second in one month, if the pensioners of the Newspaper make do their threat to close down the company over non-payment of their terminal benefits, spanning over a period of 10 years. According to the Co-chairman of Nigeria Union of Pensioners, New Nigeria Newspaper Chapter, Mr. Bosa Iweka, thepensioners have reached a point of no return in their demand for the payment of their terminal benefits and would no longer allow the company and the owner-states to continue to take them for a ride or play politics with their lives after using productive lives to serve their fatherland. In Nigeria it is a dream comes through for a journalist to work for the New Nigeria Newspaper as it is a medium owned by the nineteen Northern Governors of Nigeria, ironically the Newspaper industry is nothing to write home about as the company cannot pay their journalist or pensioners. The pensioners stated that, management of the company has refused to indicate their concern about the plight of the retirees because instead of trying to settle part of their pension arrears from the donations currently being made by the owner states of the company. The management was busy utilizing all the donations in paying staff salary arrears and buying production materials to the detriment of the pensioners. While lamenting, the pensioners called on the Director-General of the Pension Commission Dr. Ahmed to explain to Nigerians why the second batch of pensioners including New Nigeria Newspapers pensioners could not be verified last year as promised. And why the commission cannot cash in on the extension of last fiscal year to March 2010 to verify pensioners whose cases needed urgent attention in view of the harsh economic condition facing the pensioners. New Nigeria Newspapers should not bask on the euphoria that the case of the pensioners has been referred to the National Pensions Commission for consideration, and therefore abandon the retirees even when fund was made available to the company. In a country blessed with enormous human and material resources, it is hard to believe that retired workers who worked in a newspaper company owned by the 19 Northern Governors of Nigeria still finds it difficult to have their pensions paid more than ten years after compulsory retirement. Despite the fact that over 100 pensioners lost their lives as a result of the ailing economic hardships and poverty occasioned by nonpayment of their pensions for over 80 months. The Pensioners reminded the owner-states of their statutory duty to pay the pensioners since the Federal Government of Nigeria backed out of the case stating that the Newspaper Company is a property of Northern and not the property of Nigeria.About the Author:

Victor Ulasi

Member of the European Press Federation

Tel:+2348079336622

victorulasi@yahoo.com

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