Lucky Obukohwo, Reporting
What is good for the goose should also be good enough for the gander. Based on that, the pensioners in Nigeria have accused the federal government of negligence in the payment of recent increments in salary to cushion the effects of fuel subsidy removal without inclusion.
The pensioners, said this while expressing their frustration on how things have turned around since the removal of fuel subsidy by the federal government.
Spokesperson for the pensioners, Chimezie Ahaneku, said the federal government sidelined the pensioners in the schedule of “fuel subsidy removal palliative sharing and recent increment in the salary of FGN/MDAs civil/public servants.”
“This present government of APC has totally neglected the pensioners in fuel subsidy removal palliative sharing and recent increment of salary to the federal government workers in MDAs,” he said.
Ahaneku said the pensioners would like to know what their offence was for them to have been excluded from the national initiative.
“Please, can someone point out to me the offense or sin of the Pensioners to have been sidelined and continue to be subjected to undue hardship after our years of contribution to the Federal Government of Nigeria,” he stated.
“If they have NOT offended or sinned against the FGN, please let the FGN wake up and do the right thing.”
He reasoned that the Pensioners and the serving civil/public servants are buying from the same market, paying the same house rent at the same skyrocketing rate, entering the same public buses, attending the same private or public hospital with less money in their pockets.
Describing the hardship the senior citizens are passing through now due to inflation and poor purchasing power, Ahaneku said the “FGN should please do something urgently to alleviate the pensioners poor financial predicament.”
“Are you waiting for them to demonstrate and protest before you consider their plight, please be considerate”, Ahaneku said.