It was said that pensioners took to the street of Makurdi in Benue state with placards that has different inscriptions asking for the payment of their pension arrears.

 During the protest that took place on the 3rd of august 2016, two allegedly slumped and was unconscious, while others tried to revive them was unsuccessful and they were rushed to a close hospital for medical attention.

It’s really pathetic to see that our politicians actually find it difficult to keep to the promises they made to the citizens who voted them into power.

The gratuity and entitlement of this protesters is said to have spanned 11 months with the government doing nothing or saying anything about it.

Some of the words written on the placards carried by the pensioners are: ’’ ‘’Pay us our pension’’, ‘’we are more than 30,000 pensioners and we are dying like chickens everyday’’, “We are unable to buy our drugs’’, “and our children have stopped going to schools.”

After they barricaded the CBN government house roundabout which caused a gridlock for hours, they moved further to the main government house and they were received by the acting secretary to the Benue state government.

According to the spokesman of the pensioners, Ikyado; the protest wouldn’t not stop until their supplications are answered.

In his words: “the protest would not end if the state government failed to attend to our plight. Members are tired of “continued failed promises” by the state government on the payment of their pension arrears. We had variously addressed letters on the issue of our unpaid benefits to President (Muhammadu) Buhari, Governor Samuel Ortom, the state Head of Service and other relevant stakeholders including the media. This is because we pensioners feel that we have suffered enough and have been short-changed. Irregular pension payments have become the order of the day. The payments do not even reflect what the pensioners should be earning due to lack of harmonization of pension rate increases over the years.”