Comrade Othman Mahmoud spoke to National Record on 6th and 19th October 2021 respectively. When contacted and asked, he simply said he is tired of the same empty promises from the union.
National Record (NR): Good day comrade; we got hint of the unpaid retirement benefit in your union from a comrade who gave us your phone number to reach you. What is the situation?
Comrade Mahmoud: They only pay me stipends as my gratuity, but they have not started paying me monthly pension for four years now. I am tired of the same empty promises they have been making. As a result, I decided to write to NLC headquarters if there is any way they can help. I have written the letter and wanted to personally deliver it to the NLC President but he is not in; so I will return tomorrow to deliver it to him.
NR: Have you been paid any amount out of your retirement benefits?
Mahmoud: The payment stopped last year. They have been giving us some money as part payment.
NR: Not lump sum?
Mahmoud: Not lump sum at all. The last payment to me was N140 thousand as part of my gratuity.
NR: Your entire gratuity is how much?
Mahmoud: My entire gratuity was N5.5m.
NR: Out of the N5.5m, how much has been paid to you up to now?
Mahmoud: Two million naira has been paid.
NR: And you are about 3 or 4 years into your retirement now?
Mahmoud: I am a few months to complete five years in retirement.
NR: What about your pension; how much are you receiving?
Mahmoud: No kobo has been paid; I have not been paid pension even once.
NR: Were there no remittances of your pension deductions to your Retirement Savings Account in Pension Fund Administrator?
Mahmoud: You know, we did not start pension earlier, so, from the time we started, my total payment to Trustfund was just N480,000 before I retired in 2017. So they paid me when I wrote to them. They said I am not qualified or entitled to monthly pension; and they said I am just to be paid once by paying me all my savings. So I don’t have anything with them now.
NR: Why is it only that amount? Did the union not remit your pension deductions and the marching percentage it is supposed to send?
Mahmoud: You know, when we started, we were paying to national secretariat; we paid for about 3 to 4 years. So when we heard that they were not remitting to the PFA, some of us personally resolved to start paying directly to Trustfund and collected their bank account number and started paying on our own from the state I was serving. That was what we did; but the whole money we saved with the secretariat, they chopped that one; we were told Kingsley Ogba went away with that money. All the savings under pension were said to have disappeared after Kingsley left. They were not remitted, not one kobo.
NR: How much was the saving and how many years did it take to make that saving, I mean, from which year to when?
Mahmoud: I don’t know when we started but I will refer back to my records and see.
Okay, when you get to your records, please let us know so that it can be appropriately reflected in our report.
Mahmoud: I will get back to you as soon as I check my records. In addition, there are many of us from all over the country. There is a colleague from Borno who said he heard the information long ago that they were not making remittances to PFAs and as a result, he started personally sending money to his pension savings account. So, when he retired in 2017, he was having more than one million naira in his pension account. Now he is getting little amount as monthly pension. Apart from that, I doubt if there is any other person.
