Delta Pensions: APC Fights Back, Denies Claims Of Politicisation

The All Progressives Congress (APC) in Delta State has debunked the allegation by the state government of its politicization of the issues of pensions raised during recent protests in Asaba.

The protesters including some retired primary school teachers had called on the Governor Ifeanyi Okowa administration to pay their pension entitlements.

However, reacting to the protests the state commissioner for information Mr Charles Aniagwu at a press conference in Asaba on Monday decried what he alleged was the politicization of the pension issue specifically outing a Woman leader of the APC in Delta North who he said was not a pensioner of mobilizing the demonstration to embarrass the state government.

While noting the state government was not liable for the pensions of primary school teachers who he said should ordinarily hold the local government authorities responsible, the commissioner went on to say that one could not have worked in Leventis and proceed to UAC to demand for his pension.

Mr Aniagwu also noted what he described as the efforts of the Okowa government in reducing the pension liabilities from more than N100 billion it inherited.

But responding to the assertions of the state government in a statement issued on Tuesday, the APC through its State’s Publicity Secretary, E.V. Onojeghuo denied the allegation of politicizing the issue as it charged the state government to pay the outstanding pension.

“The Delta State APC finds this allegations rather laughable to say the least. It is incomprehensible to note that instead of addressing the issues of paying pensioners/retirees their due entitlements, the State Commissioner for Information, Mr. Charles Aniagwu, has engaged in a campaign of calumny by insidiously dragging the name of our Party into its criminal negligence of the Okowa’s administration deliberate refusal to pay pensioners/retirees their hard earned pensions.

“It is Indeed painful that pensioners/retirees who had given the best years of their lives in service to Delta State, are languishing in penury and abject poverty, with some of them already dead, and the only excuse given by this catatonic contraption of a government for its refusal to honour its constitutional and moral obligations to pay pensioners/retirees their due entitlements, is to label them as local government employees and APC members.

“Furthermore, the claim by the irresponsible Okowa administration’s named leader of the protesting retirees as a member of APC and the Delta North Woman leader of the party, is not only a blatant falsehood, but a complete figment of imagination of the Delta State government.

“This desperate gimmick by Okowa and his hirelings is a poor diversionary tactics designed to deflect public attention from its refusal to pay pensioners/retirees their pension entitlements. For the record and for the avoidance of doubt, there is no Mrs. Helen Ajie who is APC Delta North Woman leader.

“Fundamentally speaking there is nothing political about the protests of pensioners/retirees who are exercising their constitutional rights over the nonpayment of pensions/gratuity running into billions.”

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