What a cheap blackmail! Osun pensioners have sold their conscience to the opposition and involved in pre-election vote-selling and buying in the run to Osun 2018 governorship race by taking advertorial with the title THE UNABATED SUFFERINGS OF OSUN STATE PENSIONERS UNDER AREGBESOLA. The advertorial on page 9 of Nigerian Tribune Newspaper of July 16 2018 and protests are clear manifestations of the hijacking and pre-election vote-selling and buying of a section of Osun pensioners for 2018 election. It is on record that a section of the pensioners is sponsored to take expensive advertorials in the name of pensioners during election period since the opposition has lost credibility in Osun. The pensioners are now the mouthpiece of the opposition in Osun. The good people of Osun State should watch out for more pensioners’ blackmail advertorials that are coming to support opposition.
[dropcap]O[/dropcap]sun pensioners have introduced pre-election vote-buying and selling into the Nigerian politics. They did it in the last Osun West Senatorial bye-election by forming IDP camp to protest against Aregbesola, a few days to that election. They did it during Aregbesola’s mothers burial again.
They are now notorious for pre-election vote-buying in the name of unpaid pension arrears that cut across the 36 states in Nigeria. This is dangerous because pension arrears cut across the 36 states.
It is an irony for Osun pensioners who claimed that they have not been paid but could afford an expensive newspaper advertorials that they are suffering under Governor Rauf Aregbesola.
What a cheap blackmail! Osun pensioners have sold their conscience to the opposition and involved in pre-election vote-selling and buying in the run to Osun 2018 governorship race by taking advertorial with the title THE UNABATED SUFFERINGS OF OSUN STATE PENSIONERS UNDER AREGBESOLA.
The advertorial on page 9 of Nigerian Tribune Newspaper of July 16 2018 and protests are clear manifestations of the hijacking and pre-election vote-selling and buying of a section of Osun pensioners for 2018 election.
It is on record that a section of the pensioners is sponsored to take expensive advertorials in the name of pensioners during election period since the opposition has lost credibility in Osun. The pensioners are now the mouthpiece of the opposition in Osun.
The good people of Osun State should watch out for more pensioners’ blackmail advertorials that are coming to support opposition. With an advertorial, Osun pensioners are making political statements that portray them as rookies of partisan interests.
The state’s pensioners should learn to make demands without playing politics with it. The advertorial goes beyond the demand for the payment of pensioners, but an outright political demand to squeeze and stifle the government to make it easy prey for the opposition in the 2018 governorship election, which is the real motive of the leadership of the pensioners’ association.”
There are concerns of widespread inducement and pre-election vote-buying in which the pensioners are involved. The pensioners were allegedly bought in the last Osun West Senatorial bye-election. The pre-election vote-buying has taken the pensioners to the streets of Osogbo to blackmail Governor Aregbesola.
The opposition party in the state having spent seven and a half years and having little or nothing to show for it resorted to peddling falsehood.
Sponsored pensioners pre-election protest and pre- election vote buying have turned Osun pensioners into mischief makers by embarking on needless and stage-managed protests to portray Osun government bad and undermine efforts at resolving the pension issue.
The government has said it is not only committed to clearing the backlog of pension arrears, but also instituting a new regime where retirees’ entitlements are not delayed.
The protest was an orchestration by disgruntled elements and their political allies designed to undermine the effort of the government to resolve the pension issue.
The sponsored pensioners were protesting under the guise of agitating for pension payment, disrupt law and order, particularly when there is sufficient evidence showing that they are being sponsored by anti-development agents and mischievous members of the opposition, who have refused to accept the verdict of the people.
Pensioners in Osun State hit the streets of Osogbo because pre-election vote-buying has started in Osun, the state capital, again on Tuesday to stage a fresh protest against the non-payment of their pensions and gratuities.
The retirees said the state government owed them 18 months’ pensions because of the modulated payment policy since 2015, adding that many of them who retired since 2011 had not been paid their gratuities.
The leader of the Forum of 2011/2012 Retirees, Alhaji Yemi Lawal, said no fewer than 2,500 retirees had died as of March 2018, saying the majority of the deceased died due to starvation and frustration.
He made several political statements that the governor is using the money to construct roads and build schools even where there are no pupils. “A kilometre of road is constructed on the average with N600m in most states in the country but in Osun it is N1.2bn and this is why there is focus on road construction.
“Our people are dying on a daily basis and that is why we are out to protest again. We cannot continue to watch this happening on a daily basis. The governor was paid a bailout of N35bn, Paris club repayment and budget support of N14bn but he still owes us. This agitation will continue until we are paid.”
Apart from their penchant for raising false alarms, the leaders of the pensioners are known for making threats before major elections. They enjoy making frivolous allegations in the press in every election period. In most cases, these alarms and allegations about bailout funds have turned out to be false.
The pensioners have deliberately resorted to cheap propaganda, mischief and blackmail to cause division in Osun. Involvement and participation of these older persons in the present politics against the government reflect the extent to which they are alienated from Osun society.
In the last one year, an illegal political party of pensioners has emerged in Osun State. However, they suffered complete defeat because they have allowed the opposition party to use them against the good people of Osun.
The group is becoming a destructive problem since there is no strong opposition in Osun. The pensioners are no longer interested in issues affecting their welfare but they are now involved in the issues of political parties as it relates to internally displaced persons camp and others.
It is clear that the so-called pensioners group were hired at several occasions to stage protests during Governor Aregbesola’s mother’s burial.
The pensioners group is made up of a fraction of those who retired from service in 2012 to avoid being part of the Contributory Pension Scheme. They are the pensioners being used for protests by political blackmailers in Osun State. It is not the entire pensioners of the state that are involved.
The Commissioner for Information, Mr. Adelani Adepegba, in a statement issued to react to the protest, described the protesting pensioners as paid mischief-makers.
The statement read, “No genuine retired workers in the state will go out to protest on the lies and the political statement they call non-payment of pension and gratuity.
“Any pensioner that does that should be checked, he or she might be a paid mischief-maker and blackmailer.
“We wish to remind the general public that this set of pensioners were persistent in their show of shame and political gathering called protest between June and July last year when we were about to conduct the Osun West Senatorial District bye-election.
“They disappeared into thin air immediately after the election. Seeing them on the street this time round is not surprising, they have been obviously paid to blackmail the government like they did a year ago.”
Rauf Aregbesola administration in Osun has been widely acknowledged a second to none in the country just as the Elementary School Feeding and Health Program has won several local and international recognitions and awards. A strong foundation has been laid in the educational sector on which we will further build upon.
Inwalomhe Donald writes from Osogbo inwalomhe.donald@yahoo.com
