Ogun pensioners threaten to sue FG over proposed scrapping of PTAD
By Omobolaji Adekunle, Abeokuta
Pensioners in Ogun state have threatened to drag the Federal government to court if it should unilaterally scrap the Pension Transitional Arrangements Directorate (PTAD) without the approval of the National Assembly.
The Pensioners under the umbrella of the Nigeria Union of Pensioners (NUP), Ogun State Chapter insisted that the Oronsaye report did not recommend the scrapping of PTAD and urged the Federal government to allow PTAD to continue to exist as an agency that oversees pension issues of all pensioners.
The Pensioners made this known in a communique released at the end of the meeting of state chairmen, secretaries and leaders of the union, held in Abeokuta, Ogun state capital.
Reading the communique to journalists at a press conference, the SouthWest Public Relations Officer (PRO) of NUP, Dr. Olusegun Abatan warned that the scrapping would lead to the reinstitution of corruption, another round of harsh treatment and more untimely death of pensioners.
Abatan said, PTAD has ensured seamless and prompt payment of pensions and gratuities, expressing the fear that scrapping it may spell doom for pensioners.
Abatan urged President Bola Ahmed Tinubu not to be misinformed by “rapacious civil servants,” insisting that the PTAD is an act of law and “any step taken to unilaterally scrap it without the imprimatur of the National Assembly is a violation of the law.”
“The SouthWest NUP may go to court if PTAD is unilaterally scrapped because it will amount to violation of the law of the land and to that effect null and void and of no effect.
“The SouthWest decries scrapping of PTAD and taking pensioners back to Egypt where our pensions and gratuities will be at the whims and caprices of larcenous civil servants.
“We do not want to go back to the era where our members will be dying on queues or traveling from all over the Federation to Abuja before our entitlements are paid,” Abatan said.
He lamented the Federal government’s failure to pay the agreed N25,000 palliative fund to pensioners to ease economic hardship occasioned by the removal of fuel subsidy.
“In the MOU between the Labour and government in October 2023, the government promised to give N25,000 to pensioners, I regret to inform you that Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s government has not fulfilled that promise. We appeal to the government to do the needful particularly as the firmament is becoming too unbearable and choking for pensioners,” Abatan said
