By Amos Aar
RETIREES of First Bank Nigeria Limited, operating under the auspices of the Nigeria Union of Pensioners (NUP), staged a peaceful protest in Makurdi on Friday, voicing profound distress over the non-payment of their pensions and gratuities for more than two decades.
The demonstrators also raised serious concerns regarding the alleged disappearance of over N300 billion from the bank’s pension fund records.
The aggrieved pensioners assembled at the bank’s premises on Bank Road as early as 7a.m., carrying placards with messages such as, “First Bank, all your retired staff must not all die!”, “Where is our N300 billion pension fund?”, and “First Bank, we served you well. Pay us our pension and gratuities.” The protest was organised to draw public and regulatory attention to their protracted plight.
In a statement, Comrade Tamenor Kwaghzer, Public Relations Officer for the NUP’s First Bank Unit, detailed the union’s failed attempts at resolution.
According to the statement, the national secretariat of the NUP had engaged in multiple rounds of dialogue with the bank’s management in Lagos, but these discussions had yielded no positive outcome. Kwaghzer stated that the retirees felt compelled to stage a public demonstration after being repeatedly denied an audience at the bank’s headquarters.
“We are not the originators of this action. The originators are our national secretariat. They have been dialoguing with the management of First Bank to improve our well-being but to no avail. That has become a very hard nut to crack,” Kwaghzer explained.
He provided critical context, recalling that during their active service, mandatory pension contributions were deducted from their salaries. These contributions, he asserted, had grown to an estimated N300 billion, a figure last confirmed by the union before they were allegedly barred from accessing relevant financial records.
“I retired in 1999. It was about that time that the money was like this,” Kwaghzer noted, expressing deep anxiety that this substantial sum no longer appears on the bank’s balance sheet.
“We are feeling agitated. We are not suspecting that they have stolen the money. But we are worried that the N300 billion that used to reflect on the balance sheet is no more. Where has the money gone? These are some of the problems that are worrying us,” he elaborated.
Kwaghzer further lamented the paltry sums many received upon retirement, with some payouts as low as N2,500, and questioned how pensioners could survive in the current economic climate without their full entitlements.
He emphasized that while the union was not formally accusing the bank of fraud, the circumstances warranted public scrutiny and regulatory intervention. “We are letting customers, who are also part of investors in the bank, know that there is a problem,” he stated.
Echoing these sentiments, Comrade Gabriel Onuh, Secretary of the NUP chapter, alleged that the pension fund account had “disappeared from their balance book.” He described the situation as a “genocide” and “killers’ wickedness,” claiming that many of their colleagues had died from hardship while awaiting their benefits.
Onuh called upon the Federal Government of Nigeria, the Central Bank of Nigeria, and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to intervene.
Comrade Nathaniel Ogwuche, Chairman of the NUP, First Bank Chapter, reiterated the concerns and appealed for divine intervention to “touch the heart of the First Bank management to listen to their cries.”
