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FG to begin payment of pension backlog – Edun

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5 months ago

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The Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Mr Wale Edun, says the Federal Government will soon begin payment of pension backlog.

Edun said this during a peaceful rally by the Nigeria Union of Pensioners Contributory Pension Scheme Sector (NUPCPS) at the Federal Ministry of Finance in Abuja on Tuesday.

“We will start next week to pay everything that we can under the current budget as approved by the National Assembly.

“What has happened now is that there is backlog in terms of contributions and there is a solution.

“There has been a committee under the Office of the Head Of Service which has met the minister of budget, and I. We have a plan for dealing with the backlog under the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS).

“We are committed to paying it. It has to be paid this year. We are committed to doing that starting from next week,” Edun said.

“We have to have a solution that takes care of everybody, and that is being worked on.

‘Its going to be a question of going to the capital market and raising an instrument that allows that backlog to be cleared once and for all.

“We are going to present to the president, a viable solution using the financial market taking care of the huge backlog under the CPS,” Edun said

He reiterated Federal Government’s commitment to pensioners welfare.

“I am not happy that you have had to take this step and I assure you that any time that you or your leaders seek audience with me, I will be available in the office.

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” I was not aware of the Nov. 11 deadline, otherwise I will never have allowed a situation like this.

“In spite of your age, your situation in terms of cost of living, it costs money to come here. I would have avoided that as much as I could,” Edun said.

Speaking earlier during the protest, the National Chairman of NUPCPS, Mr Sylva Nwaiwu, said CPS had never benefited from any increment of the National Minimum Wage Act.

Nwaiwu said that the Federal Government had not released accrued rights for pensioners for over 20 months (since March 2023 till date).

“Our senior citizens are suffering, after using our youthful years to serve our father land and we get this in return.

” Please use your good office to help us. Some of our members are bedridden and some have died in the struggle.

“We cannot feed ourselves, take care of our family or take care of our medical bills anymore,” he said.

The chairman said that they had dropped several letters for the minister but none was acknowledged which made the union members to stage this peaceful rally.

Nwaiwu, however, commended the president for raising minimum wage.

Mrs Christiana Ubah, a pensioner, said that she retired in 2015 from the budget office of the federation, and could no longer feed herself. ” See how my face is, it is hunger.”

She complained that for six months, her pension had not been paid by African Alliance, saying that the government needs to come to our aid.

“ Among us here are people that retired since march last year and have not been paid a kobo. look at how harsh the economy is because of our leaders.

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“We do not have anything to live on now, every year they will tell us in the media that pension fund asset has increased, so why are pensioners not paid.

“We have a constitution in the country that every five years salaries will increase and pension will increase too. We want this reflected,” Ubah said. (NAN)

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National

JUST IN: Supreme Court sets aside judgment recognising Abure as LP’s National Chairman

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3 hours ago

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April 4, 2025

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The Supreme Court has set aside the judgment of the Court of Appeal in Abuja recognising Julius Abure as the National Chairman of the Labour Party (LP).

In a unanimous judgment on Friday, a five-member panel of the apex court held that the Court of Appeal lacked the jurisdiction to have pronounced Abure National Chairman of the LP having earlier found that the substance of the case was about the party’s leadership.

It held that issue of leadership was internal affair of a party over which courts lacked jurisdiction.

The court allowed the appeal filed by Senator Ester Nenadi Usman and one other and held that it was meritorious.

It proceeded to dismiss the cross-appeal filed by the Abure faction of the LP got being unmeritorious.

Details shortly…

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National

Hakeem Baba-Ahmed resigns as presidential political adviser

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4 hours ago

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April 4, 2025

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Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, special adviser on political matters to Vice-President Kashim Shettima, has resigned from his position, According to Daily Trust.

The newspaper quoted sources as saying that the former spokesperson of the Northern Elders Forum (NEF) resigned two weeks ago.

President Bola Tinubu appointed Baba-Ahmed as special adviser on political matters to Shettima in September 2023.

Baba-Ahmed is the elder sibling of Datti Baba-Ahmed, vice-presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in the 2023 election.

Baba-Ahmed served as chief of staff to Bukola Saraki, former senate president, from 2017-2019.

CONFRONTATION WITH MATAWALLE OVER NEF

In April 2024, Bello Matawalle, minister of state for defence, described the NEF as a “political paperweight” after the group stated that the north made a mistake voting Tinubu in 2023.

In his reaction to Matawalle’s remarks, Baba-Ahmed said it would have served the Tinubu administration better if Matawalle had listed his achievements as minister — and the achievements of the other northern appointees — instead of attacking NEF.

“Scathing criticism of NEF by a junior minister of defence, Matawalle, is ill-advised. He could have done a better job for this admin if he identified contributions of especially northern ministers and other appointees like me to improving security and reducing poverty in the North,” Baba-Ahmed said.

In a riposte, the minister said any appointee must defend and promote the administration they work for.

“Dr. Baba-Ahmed’s relationship and affinity with Northern Elders’ Forum (NEF) is well-known,” Matawalle said.

“The fact now is that he is an appointee of the administration as Special Adviser and it is incumbent on him to work for the success of the government he is part of, protect and defend the government against unjust and vicious attacks from those who hide under ethnic and other primordial interests to heat up the polity for myopic reasons.

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“It is pertinent to state that every appointee of President Tinubu including Dr. Baba-Ahmed owes the government a copious duty to promote, elucidate and advance the good works and commendable efforts of the government across all sectors.”

He added that northern appointees must defend the government or take their exit.

Matawalle is a native of Zamfara while Baba-Ahmed hails from Kaduna.

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National

INEC: We are not partisan in failed recall of Natasha

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6 hours ago

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April 4, 2025

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The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), has denied being partisan in handling the failed recall of the Senator representing Kogi Central, Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan.

The Chief Press Secretary to the Chairman of INEC, Rotimi Oyekanmi, who was on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Thursday, explained how the Commission handled the process.

“In the case of the Kogi Central District, we received a petition and a cover letter and of course what Nigerians were saying was that we were taking sides,” Oyekanmi said on the programme.

INEC logo and Senator Natasha Akpoti (Kogi-Central PDP)
INEC logo and Senator Natasha Akpoti (Kogi-Central PDP)

“But what happened was that in the covering letter, the representatives of the petitioners did not include their address as required in our regulations and guidelines and what we just did was to ask them to supply their address, it has nothing to do with the petition.

“And of course, there is nowhere in the law where INEC is asked to reject a petition just because the cover letter did not contain the address. So, there was no hanky-panky in what we did.”

Earlier on Thursday, INEC rejected the petition to recall Senator Akpoti-Uduaghan, saying that it has not met the requirements.

The electoral commission said the petition to recall Senator Natasha did not meet constitutional requirements.

Senator Natasha was suspended for breaching Senate rules, prompting some of her constituents to initiate her recall. They claimed the move was to ensure their constituency did not lack representation following the suspension of the 45-year-old senator.

Asked whether there could be a repeat of the recall process, the INEC spokesperson said the law did not specify if the process could be repeated and how many times.

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“The law just talks about the threshold, the threshold meaning that if you want to recall, you must have, in addition to your petition, 50 per cent plus one signatures. The law did not specify how many times you can undertake that,” he said.

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