Hundreds of aged, beleaguered, and visibly traumatised pensioners of the defunct national telecommunications company?NITEL-MTEL- took to the streets of Abuja, Tuesday in protest over their unpaid 35 months pension arrears.

Armed with placards bearing touchy inscriptions, they besieged the Federal Ministry of Finance, passionately appealing to the federal government to treat them as senior citizens who rendered meritorious service to their country during their prime.

Some of the inscriptions read: ?NITEL-MTEL pensioners are dying by the day. Pay Us Our 35 months pension arrears,? and What?s your reason for exempting ?NITEL-MTEL from N32,000 pension increment,? among several others.

In an interview with journalists, the spokesman of the NITEL-MTEL pensioners, Comrade Okey Ifepe, in a voice laden with emotion, passionately appealed for President Bola Tinubu?s intetvention, urging him to direct relevant ministries and agencies of government to expeditiously act.

Ifepe called for a humane consideration from the federal government, adding that the pensioners as senior citizens rendered meritorious service to their country in their prime.

He lamented, ?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.?

Ifepe regretted that the injustice meted out to them was clear for the whole world to see, adding that every other defunct agency under the same Defined Benefits Scheme (DBS), had been fully settled.

He cited such agencies as New Nigerian Newspapers, NICON Insurance, Nigeria Reinsurance, Delta Steel, and the Nigerian National Shipping Line (NNSL), leaving out only NITEL?MTEL pensioners unpaid.

?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,? Ifepe lamented.

The NITEL-MTEL pensioners were also at a loss on what they considered unjustified exclusion from the N32,000 pension increment approved by the current administration for all federal retirees.

?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,? the NITEL-MTEL pensioners further cried out.

As if the 35 months arrears and the N32,000 exclusion were not enough, the pensioners noted that they are still being owed the balance of the 12.95 per cent pension increase (2020), the 10.66 per cent pension adjustment (2015), as well as the N25,000 palliative promised to all DBS pensioners.

According to them, death benefits for verified next-of-kin of late pensioners have not paid since 2018.

?How can a nation treat its senior citizens with such coldness?? They asked.

The called for empathy from President Tinubu and the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Mr. Wale Edun.

?Look at these faces. These are fathers, mothers, grandfathers, grandmothers ? people who kept Nigeria functioning long before 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,? they said.

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.

*Synergy among PTAD, NSIWC, AGF, and Finance ? no more conflicting explanations.

The pensioners noted that they were not asking for favours, but rather demanding what is rightfully theirs.

According to them, ?every day you delay, a pensioner dies quietly, every month you postpone justice, a widow sleeps hungry.

?We have reached the limit of endurance ?

But not the end of our faith.We still believe justice is possible.

?Do not turn your backs on us again.

Do not ignore our cries. Justice delayed is justice denied ? but justice refused is a national shame.

?Today, we stand not in violence, but in dignity. Not in anger, but in truth. And we say with one united voice: Enough is enough. Pay us our entitlements. Give us our rights. Let us live ? not die waiting.

?We speak for the dead, the bedridden, and those too weak to stand here today. If justice lives anywhere in this land, let it reach NITEL?MTEL pensioners too. The labour of our heroes past shall never be in vain.? (THISDAY)

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