[size=18pt] Pensioners protest in Imo [/size]


ABOUT 5,000 pensioners who served in federal establishments on Tuesday in Owerri, Imo State capital, protested alleged failure to audit their particulars for payment in the on-going verification exercise.

Led by one Mr. Ohanu Ibe, the retirees marched to the office of the Imo State Head of Service, Agatha Ndugbu and the Imo Broadcasting Corporation (IBC), alleging that they had spent three weeks standing in the sun and rain for their particulars to be verified to no avail.
They alleged that Federal Government officials who came to carry out the exercise in Imo failed to complete it before returning to Abuja and raised the alarm that they “would now be treated as ghost pensioners”.
The retirees appealed to the Imo State government to come to their aid by intervening in the matter and urged the officials to return to the state in order to verify their particulars.

At the IBC, Ibe told the Director of News and Current Affairs, Alex Nwahiri, who represented Head, Interim Management Committee of the corporation, Richard Ashiegbu, that: “We came to the premises of the verification on Tuesday to be verified but they said the Abuja officials had gone. Please let them complete the exercise. We are old people. We only saw bank officials compiling lists. We don’t know our stand”.
Ibe regretted that even the state executive members of the Imo State branch of the Nigerian Union of Pensioners (NUP) were not consulted before the federal officials left the state.

Another federal pensioner, Chief Sunday Ukadike, expressed displeasure over the way the exercise was conducted in Imo State.
Responding, Asiegbu commended the retirees for their peaceful protest, assuring that their message would be sent to “the appropriate quarters”.


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