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From Adanna Nnamani, Abuja
Hundreds of pensioners of the defunct national telecommunications companies, NITEL and MTEL, on Tuesday besieged the Federal Ministry of Finance in Abuja to protest the non-payment of their 35 months of pension arrears.
The visibly distressed retirees, many of them elderly and frail, carried placards bearing emotional pleas as they appealed to the Federal Government to address what they described as years of abandonment despite serving the nation diligently during their working years.
Some of the inscriptions on their placards read: “NITEL-MTEL pensioners are dying by the day. Pay us our 35 months pension arrears” and “Why exclude NITEL-MTEL from the N32,000 pension increment?”
Speaking to journalists, the spokesperson of the group, Okey Ifepe, made a passionate appeal to President Bola Tinubu to intervene and direct relevant ministries and agencies to act swiftly.
Ifepe lamented that the pensioners had endured 35 months of unpaid entitlements, which he described as 35 months of hunger, sickness and watching their colleagues die in silence.
He said: “We stand here today not as beggars, not as agitators, but as senior citizens who gave our strength, our youth, and our loyalty to this country. Yet after decades of service, we are abandoned, excluded, unpaid and forgotten. We are here because we have no other choice. We have been pushed to the wall and still, we stand with dignity.
“We are owed 35 months of pension arrears. Not 35 months of waiting, 35 months of our lawful earnings withheld. Thirty-five months of hunger. Thirty-five months of sickness. Thirty-five months of watching our colleagues die in silence. And the injustice is clear for the whole world to see. Every other defunct agency under the same Defined Benefits Scheme — New Nigerian Newspapers, NICON Insurance, Nigeria Reinsurance, Delta Steel, NNSL — has been fully settled. Only NITEL–MTEL pensioners remain unpaid.
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“So we ask today, in the name of justice and humanity: What is our crime? Why should those who served this nation be treated with so much cruelty? Many pensioners sleep on church benches. Many depend on neighbours to eat. Widows cry at night because there is no money for medicine or food. This is not statistics, this is suffering. This is death.
“When President Bola Ahmed Tinubu approved the N32,000 increase for all DBS pensioners, it was meant to be a humanitarian relief, not selective, not discriminatory. Other pensioners received it. NITEL–MTEL pensioners did not. Same DBS platform. Same PTAD validation. Same hardship. Yet we were excluded.
“So we ask: How can anyone survive on N14,500, N16,000, or N17,000 a month? How can a widow eating once a day be told she ‘does not qualify’ for a relief meant for all? How can the poorest pensioners be the only ones denied the relief? This is not fairness. This is not justice. This is deliberate neglect, and it is killing our people.
“As if the 35 months arrears and the N32,000 exclusion are not enough, we are still owed the balance of the 12.95% pension increase (2020), the 10.66% pension adjustment (2015), the N25,000 palliative promised to all DBS pensioners, death benefits for verified Next-of-Kin, and payroll for verified pensioners not paid since 2018. How can a nation treat its senior citizens with such coldness?
“Mr President, Honourable Minister of Finance, Chairman, NSIWC, PTAD, Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation, look at these faces. These are fathers, mothers, grandfathers, grandmothers, people who kept Nigeria functioning long before the oil boom, long before digital technology. We are old. We are tired. We are suffering. All we ask is to live the rest of our lives with dignity.
“Do not let hunger and sickness push us to early graves. Do not let the only thing left for you to pay be burial benefits. Some of our colleagues never made it home. Some were electrocuted high up on cables. Others breathed their last in underground ducts and chambers, places most Nigerians will never see, but where we worked daily with courage. We served Nigeria with loyalty. We deserve to be treated with dignity.
“We respectfully but firmly demand: payment of the 35 months pension arrears owed to NITEL–MTEL pensioners, inclusion in the N32,000 pension increase with arrears and retrospective effect, settlement of the outstanding balance of the 12.95% increase (2020), payment of the arrears of the 10.66% adjustment (2015), release of the N25,000 palliative for NITEL-MTEL pensioners, immediate payment of verified death benefits to Next-of-Kin, payroll for verified pensioners not yet paid since 2018, and synergy among PTAD, NSIWC, AGF, and Finance, no more conflicting explanations. We are not asking for favours. We are demanding what is rightfully ours.”
