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Former staff members of the Nigerian Agip Oil Company ( Oando Energy Resources Nigeria Limited), have staged a peaceful protest demanding payment of their pension salary, which has not been paid in the last 17 years.
The senior citizens, who protested under the platform, Agip Oil Company Pensioners Association of Nigeria, accused the management of the company of unilaterally stopping the payment without any reason. The retirees, who brandished placards with different inscriptions, lamented that their members were dying in numbers because of hardship and inability to meet their daily needs. They condemned the inhumanity of Oando Management towards the vulnerable retirees, stressing that the company has blocked its gate concerning any issues about the retirees.
Among their demands, are stated this; “Oando management is strategically out to exterminate the retirees through zero welfare support for the retirees.
“Oando bought the assets and liabilities of Agip; but, has trickishly taken the assets and abandoned the major liabilities – the retirees of Agip that bought.” Chairman of the group, Engr. Elder Paul Sito, who addresses newsmen at the front of the company in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, yesterday, alleged spouses of late retirees were denied access to medical services which is supposed to be for lifetime. According the Elder Paul, the management of the company does not have welfare plan for the retirees, adding that senior citizens have been abandoned without any economic and welfare support.
Speaking further, the chairman claimed that the management has refused to follow the steps of other companies concerning retirees’ welfare.
He said: “The reason for the protest are many; we were retirees of Agip Oil Company and as a retiree, there is a pension act concerning retirees. There are welfares and pension monthly payments for this retirees. We received this pension welfares or pension salary for years until it stopped in 2009.
“Management unilaterally stopped it. We don’t even know why, they gave us reasons that are not obtainable in the world, the reason is that because a new management came, they were looking for documents to show that the payment they have been doing should continue (a payment that they were making should continue, they are looking for a document to approve that payment) and because they didn’t see it they stopped unilaterally?”
Paul explained further: “And the association picked it up, when the association was so new and its major focus was on increase in minimum wage, which they continued with the management.
And at that time, we never had what we now call (HIPAN) Hydrocarbon Industry Pensioners Association of Nigeria – the gathering of all the five companies retirees representatives.
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“They meet and check their books to see who is doing less and who is doing more, so that those who are doing less will go back to their management and inform them to appropriately like it has always been done when we were in service and that continued until 2009 when they stopped it.
“Up till today, we have never gotten a dime. In 2023, we came out like this and they gave us 1% or less; in 2024, we also came out, they gave us another half of 1%; and now, they have cut short the welfare for our deceased spouses which was supposed to be for life, they have cut it short to two years.”
The chairman emphasized: “We are asking them to reinstate it. It is for life, every other IOC (International Oil Company) is serving for life. “We are saying whatever the retirees of each of these companies get during negotiations should be applied to the retirees in Oando.”
He lamented: “All this while, we have been suffering, we have written letters to them telling them that we want to meet so that we can give them our charter of demand; we did that last year July. they replied that okay, they have heard from us officially, that they’ll go and look for it, they went and kept looking at it for months. When our letters will not be replied anymore.
“We planned to come out and they heard of it and they immediately called us for meeting. We went and they still promised us and up till now, they brought nothing. The other oil companies are increasing pensioners salaries every year, but here, it’s a different story.”
One of the retirees, who simply gave her name as Mrs. Regina, lamented that the stipend they receive from the company is of no value to the current economic condition in the country.
High Chief Oluwa Oluwaneye said: “You can see me, I was not like this, I was a good player and a good wrestler and now what God gave to me to satisfy my family, I can’t provide it again because of the condition.
“I entered this Agip in 1955. He (owner of Oando) said he is fit to buy the company; he should know that the people who worked in the company and gave him the power to come and buy, he should empower them.”
