The Nigeria Union of Pensioners (NUP) has urged the federal government and states to consider using the new minimum wage of N70,000 as a template to recompute pension emoluments due to the current economic situation.
National President of NUP, Chief Godwin Abumis, made the appeal during a news conference on Monday in Abuja.
This is even as the Union appealed to President Bola Tinubu to take urgent steps to alleviate the economic hardship unleashed on Nigerians due to the recent hike in the pump price of petrol, adding that Nigerian pensioners and other vulnerable groups were the worst hit by the subsidy removal.
Abumis said that the situation had resulted to hyperinflation, and a rise in the prices of goods and services which had negatively affected every strata of lives.
Pensioners wallowing in abject poverty
While noting that the essence of this press conference was to remind President Bola Tinubu of the devastating conditions of Nigerian pensioners, the NUP President said:
“We are groaning and wallowing in abject poverty, and this is worsened by the avoidable incessant fuel increase that has rendered our paltry monthly pensions useless.
“Pensioners have no one in government to speak for them, and the only voice they have which is the NUP is often neglected by the authorities
“Nigerians and pensioners alike are daily crying for freedom from this enslavement and exploitation. Our patience is overtaxed.”
Abumis also decried the failure of the Federal Government to honour its promised N25,000 palliatives to pensioners.
New minimum wage
The NUP president said that given the present economic quagmire, it would be discriminatory to approve 110% for workers and give the pensioners less in the same economy.
He added that all categories of wage earners are in the same ship navigating stormy waters, hence, the new minimum wage should be implemented across the board.
He said that the pensioners are no longer in service and do not have any other means of settling their ever-pilling bills, adding that they should be given a living minimum pension.
“The onus of fixing a broken economy lies with the leadership of every country, and it takes a courageous and committed leader to do this.
“We hereby call on the president to take the bull by the horn and do the needful against all odds, towards addressing the hunger problem ravaging the country,” he said.
Backstory
The Federal Government and organised labour on July 19 settled for N70,000 new minimum wage, up from N30,000 after months of back-and-forth negotiations.
The President signed the new minimum wage bill into law on July 29, noting that payment commencement would be backdated to May.
However, over a month since the signing of the new minimum wage into law, many states have yet to start payment.
While some states, including Gombe, declared that they would have difficulty paying, others have constituted panels to fashion out the modalities for complying with the N70,000 new minimum wage.
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