By Dada Ahmed in Lokoja.
Pensioners in Edo state.
Photo credit: Nigerian Observer
Retirees from public service living in Lokoja, Kogi state, particularly those who fall within the new contributory pension scheme, have urged President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, to also consider them in his welfare programme for public workers in the country.
They advised Lokoja on Friday while reacting to media reports quoting the president as saying that his administration would look into the possibility of reviewing the national minimum wage in line with the current economic reality in the country.
Our correspondent recalls that the President made this known while receiving in audience the Progressive Governors Forum (PGF), led by its Chairman, Governor Hope Uzodinma of Imo, at the State House on Friday in Abuja.
Tinubu had told the PGF members that the federal and state government would work together on the minimum wage review.
"We need to do some arithmetic and soul-searching on the minimum wage. We will have to take a look at that together, and the revenue. We must strengthen the source and application of our revenue," Tinubu, however, stressed.
The retirees, who spoke with the correspondent of The Reporters on the issue, commended the new administration for giving thought and assurance to public workers of a better national minimum wage to reflect the realities of the times.
Messrs Alhassan Muhammad, Anthony Onimisi, Adewale Adebiyi, Yusuf Alli, and Aminu Audu among others, who are retirees on the contributory pension scheme, described the President's assurance as a welcome development.
"We, the retirees, on the contributory pension scheme are particularly elated to hear from our new President on the thinking of his administration regarding the possibility of reviewing the national minimum wage.
" I am pleading with this administration, that the retirees too should not be forgotten in the course of making life better for the workers," Muhammad said.
Onimisi described public service retirees as Nigerians who used the most productive years of their life to contribute, immensely, to the process of building Nigeria in their respective calling.
" Of most importance to me is the plight of those of us on the contributory pension scheme.
"For most of us, our monthly pension is nothing to write home about, it is barely enough for us to settle our electricity bill, not to talk of meeting our basic financial responsibilities for the upkeep of our families.
"This is where we find ourselves after 35 years of meritorious service to our fatherland.
" All we plead with the Tinubu administration is a review of the contributory pension scheme or outright scrapping of it and return us to the old scheme to ensure enhanced pension like our counterparts in the old pension scheme," he said.
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