Nigeria’s federal pensioners have lost patience, and now they are raising the stakes.
They warn that if government refuses to pay what it owes by October 6, they will storm the streets in a dramatic naked protest.
Broken Promises, Rising Anger
The anger stems from broken promises.
In October 2023, President Bola Tinubu approved ₦25,000 in palliatives for pensioners and ₦35,000 for workers.
Workers collected their payments within a month, but pensioners still wait nearly a year later.
Meanwhile, workers have demanded and secured ten extra months of relief, while pensioners continue to receive nothing.
At a press conference, National Chairman of the Coalition of Federal Pensioners of Nigeria, Mukaila Ogunbote, accused government of betrayal.
He recalled how President Tinubu ordered a ₦13,000 pension increase, yet the Ministry of Finance and the Accountant-General refused to implement it.
To make matters worse, officials removed an additional ₦32,000 increment from both the 2024 and 2025 budgets.
“This is injustice,” Ogunbote declared.
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Hunger Fuels Protest Threat
Retirees now face hardship daily.
For example, Fashola Oluwo, once a senior officer at the Federal Ministry of Information, challenged officials to explain why they ignored the President’s directive.
He lamented that many pensioners struggle to buy medicine, while others die waiting for the payments.
In the same vein, Dupe Ogunniyi of the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria urged the First Lady to step in.
She explained that pensioners must still feed unemployed children and survive only on meagre pensions.
Driving the message home, former Chairman of the Lagos NUP, Adebola Akinduture, captured the suffering in blunt words.
“We are hungry,” he said.
“Food is medicine.
Without food, medicine is meaningless.
Pensioners are starving.”
Therefore, pensioners insist they will no longer endure empty promises.
They have chosen October 6, as their day of reckoning.
If government continues to ignore them, they vow to march unclothed — not out of shame, but to expose their suffering and force the nation to confront the truth.
