Pensioners of Abia State civil service have decided to take their struggle to God, to seek His intervention over the failure of the government to pay them their entitlement benefits.
The pensioners, who concluded their three-day fasting and prayer in Umuahia, on Wednesday, said they were interceding for the payment of their arrears of pension and gratuity.
The retirees, who are members of Abia Pensioners’ Forum, had an impressive turnout as they also prayed for the state, the Governor, Dr Alex Otti and the country in general, amid powerful praise and worship songs.
The Guest Speaker, Pastor Success Obinya of the City Liberation Centre, Aba, urged the pensioners to rely on God rather than man, for their well-being.
The cleric, who quoted Proverb 21:1 and Isaiah 41:10, said that the right hand of God will uphold and establish them.
“Therefore, cry no more because you have taken your grievances to God and I know that He will never disappoint you.
“God will cause the government of day to respond to your grievances and heart desires because you have done the right thing by seeking Him,” Obinya said.
The forum, a pressure group in the Nigeria Union of Pensioners (NUP), has been leading the struggle for the state government to revisit and rescind the Memorandum of Agreement it purportedly signed with the Union.
The forum has been clamouring for the restoration and payment of the arrears of pension and gratuity of the state pensioners.
Otti’s administration had in March, declared that it had cleared arrears of pension and gratuity since 2014, sequel to an agreement it signed with state NUP executive.
But the NUP had denied forfeiting 45 months of arrears of pension and gratuity of members as owed by the previous administration, in the said agreement.
Addressing journalists shortly after the prayer session, the forum”s Coordinator Mr Okey Kanu, a legal practitioner, said that the group decided to go spiritual, to ask God for His intervention.
He said that the governor had during his campaign in 2015, 2019 and 2023, promised to restore and pay them their arrears of pension and gratuity.
Kanu said: “We believe that our Governor is towing the current line based on wrong advice; hence our continued please that he should revisit and rescind same.
“We are encouraged to agitate for this because this is our Government as pensioners, their families and indeed all Abia people sympathetic to our plight played a major role in bringing it to being.
“This meeting is particularly necessary because our state NUP Exco . had denied entering into any agreement with the Government to waive it forfeit our arrears of pension, especially gratuity.”
