From Priscilla Ediare, Ado Ekiti
Pensioners in Ekiti State have appealed to the state government to ensure an appreciable increment in their monthly pension and accommodate them in any palliative package in view of the current hardship occasioned by the fuel subsidy removal.
Addressing the media in Ado Ekiti during a prayer session, the Chairman of the Nigeria Union of Pensioners, Joel Akinola, noted that pensioners are the worst hit by the fuel subsidy removal.
According to him, there are still pensioners who still earn as low as five hundred to two thousand naira monthly, wondering how such people would survive in a society where a litre of fuel is five hundred naira.
Akinola noted that many pensioners across the state are living in abject poverty adding that some of their children who are supposed to bail them out are also jobless.
He affirmed that Governor Biodun Oyebanji has been doing well but much more still needed to be done to save the lives of the retirees.
He said: “Government should see us as special projects, we deserve better attention because we are the fowl that laid the golden eggs.
“In hospitals, there should be a special desk for pensioners where we can access treatment easily because we are vulnerable.
“We have invested in the future and we should be allowed to enjoy it now, it’s our due and our right, we deserve to be paid even with interest.
“We won’t tolerate the excuse that government does not have funds, because we see what the past government used our money for in Ekiti, many politicians and the governors were growing fat and went home with billions of naira but deliberately ignored our cries as if we never mattered.
“Governor Oyebanji has been doing well, at least he has paid several tranches out of our gratuities and has also paid part of the outstanding pension and deductions which Governor Fayemi failed to pay us.
“But as much as we appreciate what he has done, we still hope that he will do better and that is why we have gathered to pray for him and seek God’s wisdom for him to be able to do all that is right all times.”
The prayer was presided over by clerics from both the Christian and Muslim religions who joined the pensioners to go spiritual towards getting the government’s favour.