Osun State pensioners gathered close to the Freedom Park along one of the major roads in Osogbo, the state capital have erected about six canopies.
The aggrieved pensioners added a new twist to their protest against the non-payment of their pensions when they erected ‘internally displaced pensioners’ camp.
Initially, the canopies did not raise any suspicion but much later, the leaders of the protesting retirees hung banners with the inscription: “You are welcome to the internally displaced pensioners’’ camp.
The ‘camp’, modelled after the internally displaced persons’ camps in parts of the North, was the first of its kind in Nigeria.
Activities at the ‘IDP camp’ lasted for a day and the pensioners brought mats and distributed rice among themselves. Medical personnel were brought to attend to the needs of the protesters by a non-governmental organisation, Virtues Unlimited Restoration Justice Initiative.
The pensioners numbering about 200 held prayers and criticised the state governor while others rained curses on him and called him unprintable names.
The protest initiative of the retirees later generated heated argument between supporters of Governor Rauf Aregbesola and those who believed the owed and aged protesters were right to draw sympathy to their plight.
Aregbesola, while reacting to the erection of the camp in a statement issued by his media aide, Mr. Semiu Okanlawon, described it as a wicked joke taken too far. He said it was unfortunate that the pensioners resorted to cheap propaganda despite the governor’s efforts to make them happy by paying their pensions up till December 2016. He said such was not the case in some states owing pensions running to months.
The statement read, “Without celebrating the failings of other places, the Osun government today is prominent among the states that have taken payment of pensions as a priority. It is therefore pertinent to ask these people what their grouse is against Governor Rauf Aregbesola. It certainly cannot be their pensions.
The Chairman of the Forum of 2011/2012 Retirees, that formed a bulk of the aggrieved pensioners, Mr. Omoniyi Ilesanmi, justified the decision to erect an ‘IDP’ camp howbeit a temporary one. He said that about 1,500 of them had died while waiting for the government to pay their entitlements.
He painted a pathetic picture of the condition of many pensioners in the state, saying some of them, who could no longer pay rent, were living inside uncompleted buildings with others occupying dilapidated structures. Ilesanmi explained that the condition which most pensioners were subjected to, due to non-payment of their entitlements, was sad.
