By Elizabeth Atte
Retired workers of the defunct NITEL–MTEL this Tuesday staged a peaceful protest at the Federal Ministry of Finance, demanding the immediate payment of 35 months of unpaid pension arrears and other outstanding entitlements owed to them under the Defined Benefits Scheme (DBS).
Addressing journalist, spokesman of the NITEL–MTEL Pensioners, Okey Ifepe, said the group had reached what he described as “the limit of endurance” after years of being excluded from payments routinely made to other defunct government agencies.
“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,” he said.
Ifepe accused the government of withholding nearly three years of legally earned pensions, describing the period as “35 months of hunger, 35 months of sickness, 35 months of watching our colleagues die in silence.”
He noted that while pensioners from agencies such as New Nigerian Newspapers, NICON Insurance, Nigeria Reinsurance, Delta Steel, and NNSL have been fully settled, NITEL–MTEL retirees remain the only group left out.
“What is our crime? Why should those who served this nation be treated with so much cruelty?” he asked.
The pensioners also criticised their exclusion from the N32,000 pension increase approved by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for all DBS pensioners.
According to Ifepe, all other groups under the scheme received the increment, leaving NITEL–MTEL pensioners surviving on as low as N14,500 to N17,000 monthly.
“This is not fairness. This is not justice. This is deliberate neglect, and it is killing our people,” he said.
The spokesman outlined several outstanding obligations still owed to the retirees, including balance of the 12.95% pension increase (2020), Arrears of the 10.66% pension adjustment (2015), Unpaid N25,000 palliative for DBS pensioners.
Included in the list are Death benefits for verified next-of-kin, Payroll inclusion for verified pensioners not paid since 2018.
He criticised what he called “coldness” in the handling of senior citizens who once kept Nigeria’s telecommunications infrastructure running.
The group called on President Tinubu, the Minister of Finance, the National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission (NSIWC), the Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD), and the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation to urgently intervene.
“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,” Ifepe pleaded.
The retirees listed their immediate demands as; Payment of 35 months outstanding pension arrears, Inclusion in the N32,000 pension increase, with arrears, Settlement of the 12.95% and 10.66% pension adjustments.
They also added the release of the N25,000 palliative, Payment of verified death benefits, Payroll inclusion for all verified pensioners, Harmonisation among PTAD, NSIWC, AGF, and Finance to end conflicting directives
The protest, which lasted several hours, ended with a unified declaration from the pensioners; “Enough is enough. Pay us our entitlements. Give us our rights. Let us live, not die waiting.”
Officials of the Ministry of Finance had not yet issued a response as of press time
