Pensioners threaten naked protest over withheld palliatives and broken promises

Nearly a year after President Bola Ahmed Tinubu approved monthly palliatives for Nigerian workers and pensioners, thousands of federal retirees say they are yet to receive a single naira.

 While civil servants began receiving N35,000 monthly shortly after the October 2023 announcement, pensioners who were promised N25,000 have been left out entirely.

Now, the Coalition of Federal Pensioners of Nigeria has issued a warning: if the government fails to implement the payment of palliatives and a promised pension increment by the end of September, retirees across the country will stage a naked protest on October 6. “We will go naked in the streets to expose the failures of this government,” said Mr. Mukaila Ogunbote, the coalition’s National Chairman, during a press conference in Lagos.

Ogunbote, who also chairs the Nigeria Union of Pensioners (NIPOST Chapter), described the situation as a national disgrace. He said President Tinubu had approved an additional N13,000 pension increment, bringing the total increase to N32,000, but the Ministry of Finance and the Office of the Accountant-General failed to implement it. “When we enquired, we were told our N32,000 increment was omitted from both the 2024 and 2025 budgets. This is injustice,” he declared.

He noted that while civil servants have now received ten months’ worth of palliatives, pensioners' requests for just six months remain unmet. “We were promised the same relief, but almost one year later, we have nothing to show for it,” he said. The pensioners say they are not only angry but desperate, with many unable to afford food or medication as inflation continues to rise.

For some retirees, the delay has become a matter of life and death. Mr. Fashola Oluwo, a former employee of the Federal Ministry of Information, said some pensioners have died while waiting for their entitlements. “We need to question the officials responsible for sabotaging the President’s directive. People are suffering unnecessarily,” he said.

Mrs. Dupe Ogunniyi, a retiree from the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria, pleaded with the First Lady to intervene. She said many pensioners are also supporting unemployed children. “We rely solely on our pensions, yet the little we're entitled to is being denied. Our children are graduates but jobless, and we still feed them,” she added.

Mr. Adebola Akinduture, former Chairman of the Lagos chapter of the Nigeria Union of Pensioners, spoke bluntly about the impact of the crisis. “We are hungry. Food is medicine, yet without it, medicine is meaningless. Pensioners are starving,” he said. The planned protest, he added, is not about embarrassment but about survival and justice.

With the deadline approaching, questions remain unanswered. Why were pension increments excluded from the national budget? Who is responsible for failing to implement the President’s directive? And why has there been no public explanation? Unless the government acts, October 6 may mark a painful reckoning, one that lays bare not just the bodies of the elderly, but the broken promises of the state.