The Campaign for Democratic and Workers’ Rights (CDWR) has expressed strong support for its public and civil service workers in Ogun State who are currently threatening industrial action.
Meanwhile, the workers are demanding the immediate payment of an outstanding N40billion in unremitted contributory pension funds.
The group called on Governor Dapo Abiodun to promptly remit the 160 months (approximately 13 years) of unpaid pension deductions from workers’ salaries without further delay.
The Coordinator of the CDWR, Ogun State Chapter, Eko John Nicholas, said in a statement on Tuesday that the organisation stands in solidarity with workers regarding the threats of industrial action in the state.
According to the statement, “We support all industrial actions, should the APC-led Dapo Abiodun’s government fail to accede to the workers’ demands. More so, we condemn the Dapo Abiodun’s government in the strongest terms for continuously withholding and refusing to remit the deducted pension funds to the Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs), despite repeated calls by workers/unions on the government before now.
“According to newspapers reports, the workers’ leaderships through the TUC, NLC and JNC (Joint Negotiating Council) wrote to the Dapo Abiodun’s government in a letter dated 17th July 2024. They demanded among other things: the release of the reports of the committee, which was set up in October 2022 on the contentious issues of the unpaid contributory pension deductions by the same government, and has since refused to make the same public after it findings.
“The workers also affirmed in the letter that successive governments from Gbenga Daniel through Ibikunle Amosu to the current Dapo Abiodun-led administrations have all defaulted in remitting the contributory pension fund to the Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs).
“Former Governor Gbenga Daniel owed 25 months before he left office. Ex-governor Ibikunle Amosun paid just only 9 months out of his eight-year tenure, while Governor Dapo Abiodun has not paid a dime since he came into office in 2019”.
Nicholas explained that the workers said they were compelled to write a letter to the governor because, with less than a year remaining until July 1, 2025—the effective date for the Contributory Pension Scheme as per the 2013 State Pension Reform Law, amended in 2008—there is no evidence to suggest that the government is genuinely committed to implementing this pension scheme, which involves a total of N40 billion over 15 years.
He added that the government refused to remit to the Pension Fund Administrators the 7.5% contributory pensions deducted monthly from each worker’s salary for over 15 years. While the government (employer) has also failed to pay its counterpart contribution of 7.5% of each worker’s salary, totalling 15% to the PFAs.
He said: “For us at the CDWR, all this has again underscored the anti-poor and anti-workers capitalist character of the Dapo Abiodun’s government, whose overriding interest is the quest to protect the profits and extravagance/opulence of a tiny few minority at the expense of the hardworking workers and poor people in the state, whose working and living conditions have continued to plummet in the face of the unending hardships and sufferings occasioned by it pro-rich policies including the unremitted contributory pension fund deductions, hike in school fees across tertiary institutions in the state, underfunding of public schools from primary to tertiary levels, privatization and commercialization of social services including health and housing, collapsed infrastructure including roads across the state, imposition of neck-breaking taxes, levies etc.
“All these have been made worse by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s anti-poor neo-liberal policies of petrol subsidy removal and the devaluation of the national currency. On the other hand, the elected public officials both at state and federal levels and their big business collaborators live in opulence and luxury at the expense of the populace.”
“The CDWR, therefore calls on the Dapo Abiodun’s government to without delay make public the committee reports, and in the same vein, pay all the withheld unremitted contributed pension funds to the Pension Fund Administrators.
“This is important, as the fates of hundreds of thousands of public/civil service workers across the state are presently hanging on the balance after retirements. This is more disheartening given that each of these workers might have served the state meritoriously for over 30 years! Also worrisome is that if all the contributed pensions are adequately remitted is not enough to meet the needs of retirees considering the rising cost of living and inflation.
“We urge the workers through their various trade unions not to baulk at pressing on their demands, but rather immediately commence sensitization and mobilization of workers through public/mass campaigns including mass meetings in workplaces, leafleting, media campaigns, rallies, sit-ins, symposia etc., as parts of activities to herald the industrial action, should the Dapo Abiodun’s government refuse to accede to the demands of workers.
“Above all, we equally urge the workers to be united in their demands, and the struggles to actualising them, and call on the national headquarters of both NLC and TUC to lend support to the Ogun workers demands, and well-meaning groups and individuals including the civil society organisations to give solidarity to the workers,” he said
