Angry pensioners lay siege to Finance Minister in Abuja

Several pensioners of the defunct Nigeria Airways laid siege to the Minister of Finance, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, on Tuesday night in Abuja over the hardship they had faced on pension verification programme.

The pensioners who claimed that the Minister had subjected them to sleeping in open space since Sunday, said they travelled to Abuja from various parts of the country due to the ministry’s invitation on data capturing.

It was gathered that the workers had arrived at the headquarters of the Ministry of Finance on Tuesday morning for the pension verification.

Some of the pensioners who spoke with newsmen said the ministry deliberately subjected them to hardship on the entitlement they had worked for all through their lives.

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Some of them said they were compelled to hang around in Abija since they could do them verification the same day they arrived.

Speaking on behalf of the ex-employees of defunct Nigeria Airways, the Chairman, Nigeria Airways pensioners, Sam Nzene, said some of his colleagues were overlooked in the first batch of the 50 per cent paid last year due to non-capturing of their data.

He, however, admitted that the situation was not the fault of the government, saying that the notice had been sent out to the pensioners that missed out during capturing to come for another round of the exercise on Monday, May 27, 2019.

He said, “My people have been here in the last three days sleeping outside and nobody is talking to them.

“No arrangement whatsoever is on the ground for the data capturing. The consultant in charge of verification, simply identified as Jibril, said he had not been paid.

“In fact, he said he needed logistics, and papers to work which we agreed to pay some money but he left and didn’t come back.”

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