Commuters Stranded as Pensioners, Transporters Protest in Edo

Adibe Emenyonu

Many passengers yesterday  were stranded in Benin City, capital of Edo State as pensioners in the state protest  non-payment of their pension and gratuity since retirement. Also commercial vehicle drivers protested  the increase in the daily ticket rate by the government.

As early as 7:00am, commercial activities were already grounded as intra-city commercial drivers grounded operations over the increase in the daily ticket rate by the state government.

Following this development, passengers had to resort to trekking because the protest that caught many residents of the capital city unawares.

This led to commercial vehicles with passengers onboard being stopped and harassed by irate members of the transport unions in strategic areas across the city to enforce compliance.

Speaking, one the transporters, Mr Solomon Agbovaire, explained that the state government on Tuesday increased the ticket fee from N800 per day to N2,000, a situation, he said did not go down well with members of all the transport unions in the state.

“You (passengers) will have to trek, since government wants to kill us. We are asked to be paying N2,000 daily for ticket as against the N800 we paid previously.

This is unacceptable,” Agbovaire  said.

In her reaction, Mrs Ifeoma Iroha, one of the affected passengers told Journalists that it was a height of insensitivity on the part of the state government to increase the fee amidst the prevailing harsh economic situation.

Iroha lamented how she was forced to pay a higher transport fare despite the fact that she was not conveyed to the agreed destination.

“I am going to Ring road, but we were stopped at Five Junctions, which is about three to four kilometers to the bus stop. We were all forced to disembark from the bus and they forcefully collected the fare from us.

“This is frustrating because my journey will not end at Ring road. I will still have to proceed further. But as it is now, I don’t know how long I will have to trek,” she said.

Also in his remarks, another commercial Mr. Mark Ehanire, a  said that increasing the ticket fee by more than 100 per cent is not the best, pointing out that government should always be aware that policy like this would bring untold hardship on the masses.

According to him, “Tthis action will definitely affect my business for today.

I am going to Agip side on the Sapele road and this is happening to me.

“In fact I don’t know what to say than to appeal to the government to rescind this decision.

On the protest by pensioners, one of the protesting retirees, Pa Marcus Afekafe, who spoke on behalf of his colleagues, said: “We are protesting to express our grievances against Governor Godwin Obaseki for treating Edo State pensioners like second fiddle in our country.

“All of us here have used our youthful years to serve the state. We are not getting younger. By tomorrow, our age today has increased by one.

“Our grievances is that many of our colleagues still receive pittance as monthly pension. Some still receive N400 a month. How much is a litre of fuel now? Some N2,000 a month; some N3,000, some N10,000 as the case may be.

Our local government colleagues who retired since 2008 have not got their gratuities. This is supposed to be a lump sum that will be given to retirees to settle their lives once they retire before the monthly pension.

For Edo state, since 2012 to date, Obaseki has not paid anybody who retired from the state civil service any gratuity.”

Quoting the Nigeria Constitution, Pa Afekafe noted that by virtue of Section 210

(3) of the Nigerian constitution, pension is ought to be reviewed in Nigeria every five years or be increase along increment in salaries of workers, pointing out that last time the Oshiomole administration increased salary of workers from N18,000 to N25,000 as a parting gift to workers, Pensioners were not carried along.

“The recently increased N30,000 minimum wage, no pensioner has benefitted from that also.

“We seek harmonisation of pension for all pensioners that retired on the same grade level notwithstanding the year of their retirement. We also seek immediate payment of our entitlements up to date,” he stated.