Kwara State Chapter of the Nigeria Union of Pensioners (NUP) has urged its members in the state to enrol in the ongoing residents registration, which the state government organized through Kwara State Residents Registration Agency (KWASRRA).
It said the essence of the exercise was for the state to have adequate data of the pensioners in the state.
The state Chairman of the union, Saidu Oladimeji, made the call while speaking to Journalists in Ilorin the capital city of Kwara State, North Central region.
This medium reports that KWASRRA has organised special registration dates for the state pensioners, commencing from Monday 16 December, 2024 to Friday 7 February, 2025 at different locations across the sixteen (16) local government areas in the state.
According to the agency, “The registration exercise will aid government in planning, economic development and social inclusion purposes. Registration under the scheme is compulsory for all residents of Kwara State, as contained in the Law setting up the Agency,
“While registration of Pensioners is going to be both through physical registration at the centres or online, via the agency’s Website, www.kwasrra.ng. That of the Students is strictly going to be online for now, so as to maintain orderliness at the centres”.
Meanwhile, the NUP chairman applauded Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq for placing importance on the welfare of the state pensioners.
According to Oladimeji, Governor AbdulRazaq, since his inception in 2019, has been fulfilling his promise to prioritise the welfare of the retired workers in the state and reduce the effect of current economic hardship on them in all his programmes and policies.
He said, “At his inception in 2019, he met with us and assured that our welfare will be a top priority, and he will be paying us our full monthly pension and ever since, he hasn’t reneged on his promises.
“In fact, due to the lingering economy in the country, he is paying us all N10,000 monthly palliative to cushion the effect of the situation which is a commendable thing I must say.
“Our members have benefited from several palliatives administered by this government. When they distributed rice, they also considered our members. They are really carrying us along with their programmes”, the chairman said.
He noted that the Governor has stopped the trend of what he described as ‘amputated’ pension whereby workers and pensioners not being paid their full payment at the end of the month.
“When I came on board, we had outstanding pensions but with the present administration, it is now a thing of the past. The then government introduced ‘amputated’ pension in April 2015 whereby pensioners were only being paid a percentage of their monthly pay.
“From 2015 to March 2019, we had an outstanding payment of 11 full months, which the present administration has since cleared for us. Governor AbdulRazaq paid us the whole eleven months, which ran into billions of Naira”, he said.
Oladimeji, however, expressed his dissatisfaction on the situation of gratuity payment in the state, saying that “Our gratuity is the only problem yet to be solved in the sense that the present administration hasn’t gone at length to settle us. As I am talking to you now, the State pension board is still struggling to pay those that retired since 2015 while the local government pension board is battling with those in 2011.
“But what this government did uniquely is that there is no month that pensioners won’t get their gratuity in piecemeal and they are paying us gradually, both state and local pensioners”, he said.
