We Are Not Beggars’: NITEL–MTEL Pensioners Storm Finance Ministry Over 35 Months Unpaid Benefits

We Are Not Beggars’: NITEL–MTEL Pensioners Storm Finance Ministry Over 35 Months Unpaid Benefits

18th November 2025

Dozens of ageing pensioners from the defunct NITEL–MTEL on Tuesday took their frustration to the doorstep of the Federal Ministry of Finance in Abuja, staging a quiet but powerful protest over 35 months of unpaid entitlements.

The retirees—many of them in their 70s and 80s—sat on the bare floor outside the ministry, holding placards and lamenting years of government silence despite repeated appeals.

Addressing journalists, the group’s coordinator, Okey Ifepe, said the protest had become inevitable after officials failed to resolve their long-standing grievances.

According to him, the pensioners are not only being owed nearly three years of arrears, but were also excluded from the recently approved ₦32,000 pension increase, a raise already received by other retirees under the same Defined Benefits Scheme.

 “We are not here as beggars,” Ifepe said. “We are senior citizens who gave our youth to this country. Yet after decades of service, we have been abandoned and forgotten. How can anyone survive on ₦14,500 or ₦17,000 a month?”

The group is also demanding payment of the outstanding 12.95% pension increase from 2020, the 10.66% adjustment from 2015, the promised ₦25,000 palliative, unpaid death benefits for next-of-kin, and restoration of payroll for verified pensioners reportedly omitted since 2018.

They called for immediate coordination among PTAD, NSIWC, the Office of the Accountant-General, and the Ministry of Finance to end the “conflicting explanations” that have prolonged their hardship.

Tuesday’s protest came barely 24 hours after parents of government-sponsored students abroad also shut down the ministry over unpaid allowances—adding to the growing list of unresolved financial obligations confronting the federal government.