Three pensioners on Tuesday collapsed during the ongoing pension verification exercise at Bayelsa capital Yenagoa. As at the time of filing this report, the pensioners were in critical condition and receiving medical attention.

Mrs Jane Aleke, Chairperson, Bayelsa Pension Board, who was supervising the exercise when the incident happened, confirmed the development. She said that the three persons were rushed to the Government House Clinic.

Aleke said that the verification exercise was not to inconvenience the retirees but to enable the state to have the actual figure of the pensioners. She appealed to the retirees to be calm and promised that every pensioner in the state would be captured in the exercise.

According to her, “This is about management of wealth and you know in paying them, the State Government cannot just begin to pay with a guess work or estimated numbers, we cannot do that as a government.

“We are ready to reach all the local governments in the state. We have started with Yenagoa; for those of them who are sick and cannot walk, we will definitely go to their houses.”

Some of the aggrieved retirees condemned the exercise which they described as too tedious and burdensome. Ebikake Davies, one of the pensioners, lamented: “This treatment being meted to pensioners is inhumane and despicable and at the same time insensitive. Indeed, it is diversionary, we want our monies, it is the same people in government that aid the so called ghost pensioners, we are not against verification but for God’s sake they have owed us for eight months.

“There should be a sense of urgency, we are not begging for charity, we have sacrificed our youthful years s they should just pay us.”

The pensioners had staged a peaceful protest in February 2016 to demand four months pension but were dispersed and manhandled by youths believed to be loyal to the State Government.

•Photo shows Bayelsa Governor Seriake Dickson.