PENSIONERS AND ‘NAKED PROTESTS’
Significant delays in payments may push many pensioners to staging a ‘naked protest’
The National Chairman of the coalition of Federal Pensioners of Nigeria, Mukaila Ogunbote, has threatened the government to settle all arrears, increments and palliatives by end of September failing which they would stage a ‘naked’ nationwide demonstration. We hope the authorities will work to avert such a drama of shame.
In October 2023, President Tinubu approved N35,000 for workers and N25,000 for pensioners as palliatives, and an additional increase of N13,000 in pensions. But while workers received their payments within one month of the approval, pensioners are still waiting for the peanuts two years later. Former Chairman of the Lagos branch of the Nigeria Union of Pensioners stressed that providing food has become problematic, adding, “We are hungry. Food is medicine, yet without it, medicine is meaningless. Pensioners are starving.”
Government has often failed to prioritise the payment of pensioners’ entitlements, leaving many in poverty. In many of the 36 states, pensioners are being owed their retirement benefits, including severance pay, gratuity and pensions, even when amounts provided are too low to sustain a dignified life, particularly given the high rate of inflation. Stories abound of senior citizens who had collapsed and died on queues while waiting for their pensions. Perhaps, the plight of pensioners in Nigeria is better highlighted in a documentary titled ‘Nation Forgotten,’ where former public servants bemoaned pension fraud, and government neglect while battling debilitating changes to their health and lack of funds to attend to their most basic needs.
It was in a bid to address the non-payment of pensions that the Pension Reforms Act of 2004 was enacted. The act covers both public and private sector employees. The Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) was introduced to replace the Defined Benefit Scheme (DBS). Under the new regime, both the government/companies and the workers themselves are to save up a given amount of their earnings towards building up an accumulated funds reserve which they could fall back on after retirement. More than two decades after the CPS was launched, many of the states across the country are still abdicating their responsibilities under the scheme.
While it is noteworthy that PENCOM has helped to grow the funds as well as a more prudent management, there are issues that are yet to be resolved by the government regarding many retired civil servants. For instance, complications in meeting up with the pension obligations had arisen fundamentally by the failure to link those in the old scheme (DBS) with those in the new scheme (CPS). But even after it seems to have been resolved, the federal and many state governments have failed in remitting deducted sums from workers’ salaries to the Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs). The result is that neither government contributions nor workers’ deducted sums are credited to their accounts with the PFAs. This malaise is even more prevalent in the private sector where many companies do not remit their counterpart deductions to the PFAs as required by the Pension Act.
While many obstacles have stood in the way of pensioners to access their retirement benefits, the PFAs have been the ultimate beneficiaries of the growing pension assets, currently in excess of N24 trillion. Those who own the money cannot continue to live in penury while intermediaries feed fat on their sweat. It is therefore time for PenCom to make the pension scheme truly beneficial to the greatest number of pensioners by whipping errant employers into line.
We urge the federal and state governments to keep faith with their obligations to pensioners. We also call on PenCom to apply stricter measures in enforcing compliance with the provisions of the Pension Reforms Act by the PFAs. Besides, additional benefits in form of increased payments tied to salary increments and gratuities should also be paid promptly.
