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Efforts
to reach a reasonable conclusion on modalities for the payment of 142
per cent arrears of pensioners in Oyo State were, on Wednesday,
frustrated as a meeting held between leaders of the state chapter of
Nigeria Union Pensioners and the government ended in a deadlock.

The union staged a peaceful protest to the office of the state governor, yesterday, to press home their demands.

The protest
followed a brief congress held at the pensioners’ office in Ibadan and
led to a meeting between the union’s delegations, led by its chairman,
Lateef Adegoke, while the secretary to the state government, Olayiwola
Olakojo, represented the state government.

According to a
communiqué issued after its congress yesterday, the union said the
parties could not agree on the time and modalities for the payment of
the owed money.

The union held a
congress in Ibadan yesterday to assess the level of commitment of the
state government to the promised it made on April 30, 2010 on the
prompt payment of the arrears.

It came up with a
six-point communiqué, in which its positions on the attitude of the
government and its representatives in the matter were viewed as well as
the way out of the current situation.

Jointly signed by
Lateef Adegoke and Olusegun Abatan, chairman and secretary
respectively, the statement said Governor Adebayo Alao-Akala did not
give any condition for the payment of the arrears when he was making
the promise in April.

The union also
frowned at the disdain the state’s Head of Service, Kudirat Adeleke,
has expressed on the plight of pensioners and vowed not to relate with
her on the matter any more.

Suffering pensioners

It then fixed
another congress for August 25 to “appraise government’s response (if
any) to pensioners’ demand for the payment of 142 % pension arrears”.

Advising the
government to pay the agitated arrears in three months instalments, the
union directed its leadership to return to the drawing board and come
up with strategy that will effect the payment quickly if the government
fails to respond before the date of the next congress.

Pensioners in the
Customs, Immigration and Prison Services, also, yesterday, cried out to
the Federal Government over the payment of the arrears of the
harmonized pensions, gratuities and allowances approved for them since
2000.

In a press
conference addressed in Ibadan, the retirees complained that they
suffer hardship and deprivation due to the failure of the pension
office in Abuja to harmonize and implement the various circulars on
pensions due to them over the period.