Odua retirees decry non-payment of pension

Spokesman of the pensioners, Mr Simeon Taiwo, who spoke at a press conference in Ibadan, Oyo State during the weekend, said the retirees were 17 but five have died while some of those living are seriously incapacitated due to insufficient funds to carry on due to non-payment of their pension.Taiwo said after they were retired […]

Spokesman of the pensioners, Mr Simeon Taiwo, who spoke at a press conference in Ibadan, Oyo State during the weekend, said the retirees were 17 but five have died while some of those living are seriously incapacitated due to insufficient funds to carry on due to non-payment of their pension.
Taiwo said after they were retired in early the 90s, they approached the management of the company in 2008 and were collectively paid only N1.8 million as entitlement to settle them for life.
He added that the individual with the highest share got about N100,000 which was inappropriate after spending  their active  lives with the company.
He said this prompted them to contract the service of  a lawyer, who went with them to the company to beg for more over which they had a meeting with the Resource Manager, Mr. Abimbola Ilori, on February 18, 2014.
He said: “What we heard from him gave us hope that the company will do something urgent about the matter but to our astonishment, the man has been avoiding us by not making himself available by not picking our calls. This is the reason we felt after all our striving to get their attention that the mass media should be our last resort.”
Also speaking at the press briefing, the lawyer, Chief Taiye Ojerinde implored the management of Odua Investment to pay the pension of the retirees in to enable them cope at retirement age.
“The people need money in their old age and are dying in their suffering; we want journalists to avenge them, to tell people about their travail because money given to them was too meagre to survive. The retirees are ready to collectively sign agreement that they will not request for more in the future after they have collected this,” he said.
When contacted, Ilori said he is now retired and cannot say anything on the matter.