Benue State Pensioners Lay Siege At Government House Gate, Makurdi

Pensioners in Benue state have so far spent four days sleeping in the cold at the entrance gate of the Government House, Makurdi to press home their agony and excruciating pain.

The pensioners are protesting the non-payment of over 25 months of their pensions and gratuities by the Governor Samuel Ortom-led administration.
The pensioners marched to the gate of Government House as early as 9:00am on Wednesday with some of them carrying with them, raincoats, sleeping mats, polythene bags and other materials indicating that they were ready to stay and pass nights as long as they could.
Our correspondent, who visited the scene of the protest, noted that the retired civil servant now considered senior citizens narrated torrents of hardships they have encountered in the course of sleeping in the open at the gate.
Some of the pensioners that included Elder Friday Igyuse and Mrs Francisca Ameh, said they were faced with the terrible cold since it is raining season.
According to Ameh; “What is killing us here is mosquitoes. They have been feasting on us seriously since the night we arrived here.”

In the words of Elder Igyuse: “When we came, some policemen told us to relocated to a building close to the gate where they said there was light.
“We went there and behold we stumbled on two very big snakes there. We killed them, spread our mats and slept and since then, we have been here”.
Chairman of the concerned pensioners, Comrade Peter Kyado, who spoke to our reporter, said they had to take the decision after exhausting all legitimate avenues in approaching the government to attend to their lamentations.
He said that since they have resolved to sleeping in front of the gate, there was no going back until the day they see alerts indicating that government has commenced payments of their pensions and gratuities.
He further said; “We have suffered a lot. Most of our members are living strictly on drugs. As a result of the non-payment of our entitlements, many have died while others are in various hospitals battling with various ailments but with no hope of settling the bills to get better medical attention.”
It was on the 3rd day of the protest that Governor Samuel Ortom arrived from Abuja where he has been since he returned from Japan five days ago that he stopped over to address the retirees.
Governor Ortom appealed to the pensioners to go home as they will start receiving alerts on Monday or Tuesday.
However, the pensioners refused to heed to the plea by the governor as they declined to leave, insisting they have heard a lot of such assurances from the governor that yielded no tangible results
The resilient pensioners have therefore remained in front of the Government House, Makurdi with a vow to continue with the protest.

It was however gathered that from sources close to the Benue state government that there are plans to forcefully dislodge the pensioners from Government House gate owing to the embarrassment they are creating for the government.