Pensioners Get Two Cups Of Rice Palliative In Cross River

Pensioners in the Calabar branch of the Nigeria Union of Pensioners (NUP) which covers Odukpani, Calabar Municipality, Calabar South, Akpabuyo and Bakassi local government areas on Wednesday, said they got 400 bags of rice as palliative to cushion the effect of subsidy removal.

The union however said it has about 2.5 million members, adding that the palliative were grossly inadequate.

The chairman of the branch, Mr Godwin Effiong while speaking with newsmen in Calabar, said it was absurd to share two or three cups of rice with each member.

He stressed that it was even unconscionable to ask a pensioner to spend N1,000 on transportation to travel for about 12 kilometres from his village to Calabar only to collect two cups of rice.

He explained that what the union heard was that the Federal Government would send N800 bags of rice as fuel subsidy removal palliative to pensioners in the state.

Effiong added that “all of a sudden, it was cut down because pensioners in the state are of two categories, the state and the local government pensioners.

“Local government pensioners belong to a group called Pensioners Association which they carved out by themselves and we also have NUP for state retirees; so the palliative was shared between the two groups almost equally.

“It was grossly insufficient because some people went home with just three cups of rice while others got between five to seven cups because we wanted it to go round to avoid complaints later,” Effiong said.