Ex-teachers lament six years unpaid benefits

A 70-year-old retired teacher in Delta State, Mrs. Queen Akele, has lamented the hardship she experienced because her retirement benefits paid by Ethiope East Local Council, Delta State, especially during the Covid-19 lockdown.

The former primary school teacher is among hundreds of other teachers and local government workers who are being owed six years of entitlement totalling over N48 billion.

Clad in black mourning clothes, Mrs. Akele and some other pensioners under the aegis of Delta State Local Government and Primary School Teachers Retirees Union thronged the streets of Asaba, the Delta State Capital to call attention to their plight, temporarily disrupting traffic Tuesday last week[.

Mrs. Akele, who was seen with a folded mat on her head while protesting, said 35 teachers had died due to ill health and disease, lack of care and money to purchase basic medication.

She said she retired from the teaching service on August 31, 2014 and her file got to the local government pensions bureau in January 2015 but from then till the day of the protest, all she had got was “one promise or the other”.

Mrs. Akele berated the Delta State government for depriving the retirees of a well-deserved retirement.  Rather than have a safety net to fall back on, retirees are forced to depend on their children and others to survive.

“My husband died 30 years ago. He was a headmaster before he died. I have three children. They are all graduates. It is only one that is working in teaching hospital, Oghara. I eat zero-one-zero – that is – once a day. On my health, today I am down, tomorrow I am up.

“Many of us have died. Many are down; they cannot sit, neither can they walk. It is the grace of God that is surviving us. I am over 70 years old. That is why I have come with this mat that I will lie down here, without good results I will not go home.

“During the lockdown period I had one good man close to me who was giving me food. That helped me to survive. He is Paul Okene by name. If not, I do not know where I would have been by now.”

She called on the government to pay her entitlement in her lifetime so she could enjoy the fruits of her labour.

“I want the Governor to pay me my pension and gratuity. If I die before it is paid, my family will come and sit down and will have authority over what I laboured for. I do not want it to be so. I want it to be paid. I am from Eku community in Ethiope East. I lost my husband January 1993.”