By BANNERNEWS Reporter, Calabar
Governor Bassey Otu of Cross River State has assured civil servants who retired from the state Civil Service that his administration is making arrangements for the release of another tranche of gratuity payments before December 2026.
Otu gave the assurance while receiving a delegation of elders, led by retired Colonel Pam Ogar, former military administrator of Kwara State.
He expressed appreciation for the visit of the elders, their counsel and endorsement of his administration.
The governor said he felt “a very heavy burden” sitting before them because of the sacrifices they had made in building the state.
“When I look at the faces here, I see people who have reached the peak in their different professions and who have had experiences which we still need in terms of nation-building and state-building,” he said.
Otu said his administration remained sensitive to the plight of retirees and was committed to progressively clearing the backlog of their outstanding gratuities and other benefits.
He also described the experience and wisdom of the elders as invaluable assets to the state, saying Cross River was privileged to have a reservoir of people whose knowledge could guide the present generation in state-building.
He appreciated retired civil servants for their works, pledging that his administration will from time to time clear hurdles against regular payments of their gratuities.
The governor may have reacted to earlier visit of a body of retirees to the chairman of the state ruling party, All Progressives Congress, APC, Christopher Etta where they sent a message about their plights to the governor.
They had appealed to the governor for urgent intervention to address unpaid gratuities and harmonise pensions.
Chairman of the state chapter of the National Association of Retirees of State Government of Nigeria (NARSGON), Comrade Daniel Bassey Effiom, delivered the appeal.
Effiom urged Etta to prevail on Governor Otu to urgently release outstanding gratuities and address the disparity in pension payments across the state.
He lamented that many retirees were struggling to survive on monthly pensions of N4,000, N5,000 and N6,000.
“Our members are really suffering in Cross River State. Some are earning N4,000, N5,000, N6,000, etc., as monthly pensions.
“What can such monies do for a living human being? There’s so much hunger and sickness. And many are dying undeserved deaths every day,” he said.
According to him, some retirees have died because they could not afford drugs and other basic necessities, while others continue to wait for their entitlements.
“We need our entitlements urgently, please,” Effiom appealed, stressing that retirees should not be treated as “spent forces” because they remained relevant to the state.
He said his appeal followed unsuccessful attempts to reach the APC chairman by telephone, adding that he believed Etta could use his position to draw the governor’s attention to the plight of pensioners.
The NARSGON chairman also reminded the APC chairman that retirees constitute a significant voting bloc in the state and have dependants who could be influenced during elections.
