Crisis hits pension unions as civil service pensioners break out from NUP

From Benjamin Babine, Abuja

Following continual disagreements between the Federal Civil Service Pensioners (FCSP) and the Nigeria Union of Pensioners (NUP), the FCSP has announced that it is pulling out of the NUP to become and independent full fledged union.

The leadership of the FCSP who made this known in a press briefing on Thursday also revealed that it had have written to the Ministry of Labour and Employment to stop the Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD) from paying its check-up dues to the NUP.

Disclosing this, the National Chairman of the FCSP, Comrade Omeiza Sunday said that the protracted impasse between his group and the NUP was occasioned by the refusal of the National Headquarters of the NUP to give them the commensurate allocation of the 55% share of the 1% Check-off Dues accruable the FCSPB.

Comrade Sunday noted that the Police Pension Department under PTAD, Customs, Immigration and Prisons Department under PTAD, Parastatals Pension Department, and all the 36 councils of the union which are affiliates under the NUP umbrella collect their Check-off Dues direct from the source of payment.

“But the case is not the same with the Federal Civil Service Pensioners. This exceptional act of deprivation of the rights and privileges of the Branch calls for curious concern,” he said.

He therefore concluded that: “In the spirit of freedom of association, coupled with the deepening and persistent
crisis in the NUP, including the unwholesome misappropriation of our funds, usurpation of our functions, precipitated by the highhandedness
annihilation, deprivation, and denial of our rights and privileges, culminating in gross violation of the Constitution of the Union, by the supposedly custodians of
the same Constitution, the entire membership of the Federal Civil Service
Pensioners has finally opted to pull out of the Union, to form a full-fledged Union
on its.”

Explaining in detail, some of the reasons for their decision, he said: “Over a period of four years, the FCSP contributions to the purse of the NUP amounted to the tune of One billion, Two hundred and Thirty-Three million, Ninety thousand, Three hundred
and Ninety-Three Naira (N1,233,090,593.00). The Constitution of the NUP stipulates that the extent of engagement is determined by the extent of the financial contribution of affiliating members.

“Unfortunately however, the personnel, who are only employees and not Pensioners, but responsible for the administration of the Union at the National
Headquarters of the NUP have persistently refused to give us our due, over the years but misappropriated it to the extent that when we demanded for our right, they conspired to muscle and intimidate us.”

The FCSP is the official body of pensioners who retired under the administration of the
Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the federation (OHCSF), on or berore July, 2007 under the auspices of the Defined Benefits Scheme (DBS).