Pensioners' Union grind axe with Head of Service

Winifred Ekanem Oyo-Ita

The Pensioners' Union in Nigeria appear to be prepared for a showdown with the Office of the head of Service over their funds which was kept in agreement.

Members of the Association of the Federal Public Service Retirees have asked the Head of Service of the Federation, Winifred Oyo-Ita, to order the release of their N14.6bn trapped in the accounts of the Nigerian Union Pensioners. The group, according to its Chairman, Emmanuel Omoyeni, said the money was the accumulation of the 1 per cent of the 2 percent deduction from their monthly pension since July 2008.

Omoyeni told Punch correspondent that there was an agreement between his group, the Nigerian Union of Pensioners, and the office of the Head of Service, to deduct the money, for welfare purposes.

He said his members have now decided to take their case to the leadership of the National Assembly through a petition because all efforts to resolve the issue had failed. He lamented that all efforts to secure the money were frustrated because the NUP leadership allegedly ignored all appeals, including that of the former HoS, Steve Oronsanye, to remit the money to their account.

In the petition, written by their lawyer, Mr. Adepoju Ajala, and obtained by our correspondent in Lagos, the group said its members were victims of the mass retirement exercise carried out by the Federal Government in 2005.

The pensioners said they started the process of their association’s registration with the Corporate Affairs Commission after their disengagement from service. Members of the AFPSR added in their petition that they met with the then Head of Service, Mr. Steven Oronsanye, to discuss how to improve on their welfare, bearing in mind that some of them were still very young when they were retired.

They explained that an agreement was reached between them, the NUP and the HoS office, that 2 per cent of their monthly pension should be deducted and kept as savings for them.

They said part of the agreement was that 1 percent of the money would be used to arrange a common business for their members after it would have accumulated for a period while the remaining 1 per cent will go to the NUP accounts.

The petition read in part, “The Nigerian Union of Pensioners cum other authorities reached a compromise to the effect that 2 per cent be deducted from the pensions of our client.

“In 2008, the accounts department of the office of the Head of Service, started the deductions from our client’s entitlements through a letter dated July 31, 2008. That our client states that the NUP later replied asking for the numerical strength of the members of our client and of which they complied with, yet they failed to remit the said 1 per cent to our client2.

“That our client states further that they wrote series of letters dated 9th Oct 2009, 27th Oct 2009, and Nov 2, 2009 to the HoS, asking for various intervention while the NUP and other authorities were never involved.”

The petition added that the AFPSR wrote another letter in April  2009, demanding from the NUP, the remittance of the 1 per cent deduction, which had accumulated to over N212m but that the request was ignored.

It added that the NUP allegedly failed to reply subsequent letters demanding the remittance of the money to date.

The retirees in their petition, lamented that the development made them to forfeit the opportunity to procure tractors and other farming equipment from the Federal Ministry of Agriculture at a subsidised rate, in 2010.

They further explained that their members embarked on a peaceful protest in October 2011 following a breakdown of truce initiated by the Accountant General of the Federation, Federal Ministry of Labour and other relevant agencies, failed. They also stated that the Head of Service intervened in the matter by preventing the AFPSR from staging a protest in October 2011 and allegedly confirmed that their money with the NUP as of that time was N1.5bn.

The petition added, “Up to this moment, NUP and other authorities still collect our 1 per cent check-off dues from the office of the Head of Service of the Federation, Federal Ministry of Finance, and the Accountant General of the Federation, and refused to remit the same to our client”

Efforts to get the reaction of the Head of Civil Service of the Federation, have not been fruitful as yet as the director who could speak on behalf of her office declined comments when contacted by one of our correspondents.

But in his response, the Assistant General Secretary of Nigeria Union of Pensioners, Mr. Bunmi Ogunkolade, said that no such money was trapped in the account of the NUP.

He wondered why Omoyeni was raising the alarm in 2016 if it was true that deductions were made from members of his association in 2008. He said that Omoyeni was not a member of the NUP adding that the pensioners’ union had nothing to do with him.

Ogunkolade said that it was not the business of an association to collect check-off dues as only unions had the powers to collect such deductions from their members. He said, “We don’t have anything to do with Omoyeni in our union. That is why he said his own is an association, not a union.”