Protesting Retirees Were LG Employees, Says Delta Commissioner

Omon-Julius Onabu in Asaba

The Delta State Commissioner for Information, Mr. Charles Aniagwu, has claimed that the retired primary school teachers who, last weekend, besieged the Government House, Asaba, to protest alleged non-payment of their pension benefits, were never employees of the Delta State Government but retirees of local government councils where they worked and retired.

Aniagwu, who briefed newsmen yesterday at the State Secretariat Complex, Asaba, advised members of the public to be wary of the antics of certain political interest groups that were seeking relevance through peddling of falsehood and rumours to gain dubious political advantages in this season of elections in the country.

He noted that it was a well-known fact that financial responsibility for public primary school teachers across the country, including payment of salaries and pensions, fell within the purview of local government councils, saying last week’s “stage-managed protest” in Asaba only attempted to put the blame of non-payment of the retired teachers on the Okowa’s administration.

Specifically, Aniagwu said that the protest to the Government House while Governor Ifeanyi Okowa was in Osun State with other PDP leaders to witness last Saturday’s gubernatorial election, was led by one Mrs. Helen Ejie, a retired primary school teacher who is also the All Progressives Congress’ (APC) women leader from Ndokwa area.

He said: “We have it on good authority that the incessant protests emanating from a section of pensioners in the state have become politically motivated.

“The leader of the protesters is Mrs. Helen Ejie, a retired teacher from Iyiatu Primary School, Utagba-Ogbe in Ndokwa West Local Government Area. She retired in 2016 and is the coordinator of APC women in Delta North.

“Sometime last year, this same woman led a few persons contrary to the reality of what we are doing they come to Asaba, roll themselves on the ground and pouring invectives on the governor in line with what those who have asked them to go and demonstrate.”   

He said that it was unfortunate that those who are in position to appreciate the achievements of the Okowa administration and accordingly commend the state government to the people were busy misleading the people through irresponsible politicking. 

Aniagwu said: “It is public knowledge that primary schools are under the local government councils in terms of how they are remunerated and how they operate.

“They will begin to shout and cast aspersions on the person and office of the Governor. I have never seen where somebody will work in the UAC and proceed to Leventis to receive salary.

“What we have always done is to assist them because we believe that they are Deltans and you can recall in 2015 when we came into office, we met over seven months’ salary arrears owed local government council staff and primary school teachers.

“We assisted them to clear up those arrears and even when we got bailout from the federal government we gave them a grant of N3billion, which aided in clearing the backlog.

“In the area of pensions we have also assisted them to pay, as at when we came they were getting N150 million to tackle pensions and we up scaled it to N300m and to fast track it further, we increased it to N500 million monthly.

“We have so far cleared local government pensions to early 2018 and Primary School Teachers owed several years of arrears of pension to August 2016.

“We have said that in addition to the N500m monthly grant, when we access the N150billion bridging finance we will release the sum of N10billion as grant to offset part of the pensions owed these pensioners by the local government councils.”

On the constant attacks on the governor by a former member of the Delta State House of Assembly, Evance Ivwurie, the commissioner said that it was obviously motivated by politics of bitterness simply because the man failed in his bid to return to the state legislature due to not being popular among his people.

“He went about alleging that several funds have been taken and misappropriated, but let me put it on record that all the loans we obtained are properly directed to areas they were meant for.”  

The information commissioner also took a swipe at the Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Mr. Festus Keyamo, for what he called an uncharitable comment on the performance of the Okowa’s administration, saying the minister clearly lacked moral ground to do so, especially at a time ASUU has been on strike for several months.

Aniagwu said: “We need to remind Festus Keyamo that in Delta our universities are working while students of the ones that belong to the federal government are still at home.

“We remind Festus Keyamo that our children who are supposed to be in school are still at home and we urge him to work seriously with his senior colleague (Dr. Chris Ngige) to ensure that the issues raised by ASUU are resolved as soon as possible in the interest of the students and parents.”