A coalition of Civil Society Organizations has condemned the role of the country’s secret Police, the Department of State Services (DSS) in the lingering pension debacle in Imo state.
The group was reacting to the recent incident where leaders of Pension Intervention Committee were invited by the DSS and grilled for four hours, threatened and warned to quit their agitation for their pensions.
In a statement signed by Okechukwu Nwanguma
Executive Director, Rule of Law And Accountability Advocacy Centre (RULAAC); Ezenwa Nwagwu, Convener, Say No Campaign Nigeria; and Honourable Ohams Chinedu, a human rights activist,the group lamented the unending plight of pensioners in Imo state and called on all men and women of conscience to add their voices and combine their efforts to demand that decades of injustice against the senior citizens is redressed.
The statement read in part: “We are aware that the two pensioners and leaders of the Pensions Intervention Committee, Iyke Ohaneje and Maurice Amaechi, were invited by the SSS and grilled for upwards of four hours and further threatened and intimidated to quit protesting over their unpaid pensions. As a matter of fact, the leaders said the SSS asked them to leave town!
“And our question is ‘why should the SSS get involved in pensions matters?
“Why would a secret service whose duties are clearly defined by law to be primarily to gather intelligence and uncover threat to internal security dabble into labour disputes and offer itself for hatchet job for State Governors?”
The Coalition regretted that successive governments have hidden under different excuses and subterfuge to perpetuate the neglect, deprivation and impoverishment of the aged and retired civil servants, thus subjecting them to lives of untold hardship and frustration.
The Statement continued: “Since the advent of the Hope Uzodinma administration, the Pensioners have continued to agitate for the payment of their pension with the government giving excuses why it could not pay them. For the fifth time in less than a month, the senior citizens gathered again at the State capital, Owerri on Tuesday August 4, 2020 to protest against the continued non-payment of their pensions and gratuities by the Hope Uzodinma administration.
“But the unthinkable and most abominable happened. The peaceful rally of the senior citizens was violently broken up by hoodlums unleashed on them by the government. The hoodlums, armed with whips, attacked, flogged and brutalized them in a bid to disperse them. But the determined pensioners stood their ground.”
The statement added also that two weeks later, precisely on the 18th of August, about 25 Imo pensioners including their leaders who were waiting for more of their members to arrive for their weekly meetings, were barricaded-in and locked up for more than five hours at the Freedom Square venue of their weekly meetings by suspected government agents led by the Special Adviser to the Governor on Special Duties, Chinasa Nwaneri.
“Government’s resort to threats and terror tactics to intimidate and cow the pensioners into submission and silence clearly defines the character of the government as one that does not care about the plight of the poor and vulnerable. It portrays it as an oppressive government that brooks no criticism or opposition.
“It is time the government realizes that it does no favour to pensioners and workers when it pays them their monthly pensions and salaries. It is their entitlement”, the group said.
The group stressed that it was evident that the government has demonstrated its disposition to ruthlessly repress its citizens demanding their rights, rather than listen to them.
“We therefore, call on all Imo men and women of conscience to rise up in defence of our senior citizens and in solidarity with their cause”, the statement read.
