Nigerian pensioners are planning to stage a naked protest to demand better pensions and living conditions, according to the National President of the union, Godwin Abumusi.
He made this announcement at a news briefing in Abuja on Friday, where he expressed his frustration over the delays and inadequacies in the payments of pensions in Nigeria.
He said, “I am going to lead Nigerian pensioners naked. I mean, when we are going to protest, we are going to go naked on the street, so that the world will see the pensioners in Nigeria are demonstrating naked. If they like, they will arrest us and say, ‘Why did you go naked on the streets?’.”
He lamented that the Nigerian government does not care about the poor people, but only about themselves. He cited the example of a pensioner in Enugu who receives as low as N450 as his monthly pension. “How can this be?”, he asked.
He also called for a review of the national minimum pension, in line with the proposed N200,000 minimum wage by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC).
He said, “We wish to propose the sum of N100,000 as the national minimum pension to the tripartite committee; as anything short of that will incur the wrath of the pensioners who are hard hit by the prevailing economic hardship.”
The union leader said the naked protest will be a way of drawing the attention of the world to the plight of pensioners in Nigeria, who are suffering from poverty, hunger, and neglect.