Gbenga Sodeinde in Ado Ekiti
Ekiti State Governor, Mr. Biodun Oyebanji, has assured pensioners in the state that his administration has concluded plans to make disbursement of N200million monthly gratuities to them henceforth, promising to also review pensions in line with current realities.Governor Oyebanji, who gave this assurance while disbursing over N500million in gratuity cheques to 152 pensioners in Ado- Ekiti last Monday, also promised to review the monthly pension following the discovery that some pensioners still receive abysmally low amount as monthly pension.
The governor expressed his disapproval for the usual gathering of elderly people in a hall for the purpose of disbursing gratuity cheques to them, and directed the PTAD office to ensure they disburse gratuity on monthly basis henceforth.
Oyebanji, who also assured pensioners that the government has started working out modalities to defray over N40 billion owed, said he had already approve N100million each for both state and local government retirees which must be disbursed on monthly basis to deserving pensioners.
According to him, “N40 billion is just a number, I don’t think that that is something we should not be able to resolve, and I am in constant discussion with the committee that is doing this, they are almost done. We are looking at the best deal that will be acceptable to you and the government. Once, we get to that level, we should be able to make a very definite mark on that number.
“I have approved that local government and state pensioners should be paid N100million every month for gratuity. I have just increased that of local government from N50million to N100million. So, every month, apart from pension, we will be paying N200million and I believe that that will go a long way till we resolve the issue on ground.
“There is no need accumulating the money, it should be paid to the pensioners immediately they receive it. We don’t have to be coming here to be distributing cheques again, because I don’t think it is necessary again. I am not doing this for political reason.”
Governor Oyebanji assured the citizens of the state that his efforts at infrastructural development of the state would not in any way affect his shared prosperity agenda for the people as he stressed the need for political leaders to be futuristic in attending to issues that concern the populace.
According to him, “On the concern raised by people on some quarters, that infrastructure development programme of his administration would negatively affect his welfare programmes, we are going to do the two together because Ekiti State belongs to everybody and we must be futuristic. Ado was not like this when the state was created, we agreed to do the flyover because, we did traffic study of that place and we discovered that in the next five years, with the rate Ado is growing, and if we wait till then, there will be chaos in the town.
“It was a risk we took to do that and most of our infrastructural programmes are strategically thought out. As a leader, I have learnt to be futuristic; if we spend all our resources on welfare and palliatives, what happen to the yet-to-be-born children of Ekiti State? So we must lay a very solid foundation for them. That is what we are doing with infrastructure and agriculture. We are investing heavily in agriculture so as to ensure that what happened this year is not allowed to happen next year.”
Speaking further, Governor Oyebanji expressed appreciation to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for supporting the state, saying without him, Ekiti State would not have been able to achieve any meaningful development.
In their separate goodwill messages, the Chairmen, Nigeria Union of Pensioners (NUP), Joel Akinola; Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Kolapo Olatunde; Trade Union Congress (TUC), Sola Adigun, and Joint Negotiating Council (JNC), Babafemi Ajoloko, commended Governor Oyebanji on his various efforts at changing the narratives by ensuring that workers and pensioners enjoy a new lease of life in the state.
