Eromosele Abiodun
Members of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) Pensioners’ Welfare Association have appealed to the management of the agency to disregard alleged fifth columnists stoking crisis between it and the pensioners.
They urged the NPA to embrace dialogue to resolve issues around pensioners’ benefits.
The President of the association, Mr Charles Binitie, while briefing newsmen in Lagos, said all the pensioners want is dialogue, to save the image of the NPA from being dragged in the public domain.
He said the pensioners’ association was not a trade union contrary to what the NPA management was made to believe.
According to him, “The NPA we know is a great family, a place we all will wish to belong. The enemy quietly crept in and now has entered into the fabrics of its pensioners to make sure that they can never agree for peace to reign to enable us enjoy all that we are entitled to receive from the NPA.
“It is unfortunate that the present leadership of the NPA inherited a problematic pensioners’ association with undefined and unexplained crisis.
“This crisis started over 10 years ago and has continued because some members of the NPA management have been fuelling the crisis by playing the game of divide and rule.
“All efforts by the Deputy Chief Registrar (Litigations) of the Federal High Court, Lagos, to bring the crisis to an end never succeeded. All efforts by the Chairman Board of Trustees and elders’ forum fell on deaf ears.”
He added, “The section 173 (1) of the 1999 constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended), ‘the right of a person in the public service of the federation to receive pensions or gratuity shall be regulated by law.’ is being misquoted by the NPA.”
While denying that the group was factionalised, he said, “It is instructive to note that the Lagos state high court, Ikeja, delivered judgment on 26th of September, 2014, sacking all those parading themselves as the elected executive of the association and ordered the chairman, board of trustees to call for annual general meeting (AGM) to be attended by NPA pensioners to elect new executives.
“The elections were conducted on June 2017 and authentic leaders emerged. It is to be noted that the judgment and the resultant elections, have, so far, not been challenged in any court, yet NPA has refused to recognise the elections.”
They appealed to the management to consider their age and service to the authority and apply the 33 per cent upward wage review granted it by the National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission to the pensioners.
