The National Union of Pensioners FBN Unit has accused the management of FirstBank of Nigeria of continual refusal to comply with court orders, pension reforms, and signed agreements.
In a press statement issued on Monday, the union’s National Chairman, Pastor Gimbason John, criticised FirstBank for its flagrant disregard for the rights of its former employees.
He said the pensioners had been enduring years of frustration in securing fair pension payments.
Meanwhile, all attempts to contact Folake Ani-Mumuney, the Head of Marketing and Corporate Communications at First Bank for comments on the matter, were unsuccessful, as she did not respond to several calls and emails.
He said that the struggle for fair pension practices at FirstBank dated back to 2008 when the union began collective bargaining efforts.
Despite winning a case at the Investment and Security Tribunal in 2010, he claimed FirstBank failed to comply with the ruling.
It stated that instead, the bank opted to appeal and stalled proceedings, adding that the case remained unresolved in a High Court in Lagos.
Gimbason further lamented that meetings between the union and the bank, including the most recent one in September 2023, had failed to yield results.
“For God’s sake, who are these stakeholders they are always consulting with?” he questioned.
He expressed frustration at the bank’s repeated delays.
According to Gimbason, one of the major points of contention is FirstBank’s alleged failure to review pension payments upward every five years, as mandated by a 2016 court ruling.
He claimed that many pensioners received meagre monthly stipends ranging from N4,500 to N84,000, with senior management retirees, such as former general managers, receiving as little as N60,000 to N84,000.
The union president also alleged that the poor pension payments had resulted in untimely deaths of retirees, many of whom could not afford adequate healthcare.
“The death of a pensioner is the death of his or her pension payment,” Gimbason said.
In 2018, he claimed it reached a Memorandum of Understanding with FirstBank after a protest at the bank’s Coomassie House in Abuja, but the bank had allegedly refused to honour the agreement.
“It will shock you to know that FBN pensioners are the least paid in the financial sector despite First Bank being one of the largest banks in Nigeria,” Gimbason stated.
He noted that the union had given FirstBank two weeks to engage in negotiations and increase pension payments to N150,000 per month. According to Gimbason, should the bank fail to meet this demand, the union has vowed to mobilise over 5,000 pensioners for protests at FirstBank branches across Nigeria, including the bank’s head office in Marina, Lagos.
In addition to improved pension payments, the union demanded a yearly medical allowance increase from N30,000 to N300,000 or free medical care for all pensioners.
He also called for an investigation into the alleged disappearance of pension funds, rumoured to be worth over N300bn and asked that pensioners be represented on the bank’s board.
Gimbason appealed to the Central Bank of Nigeria, the bank’s board chairman, and the public to intervene. They wanted FirstBank to comply with court orders and treat its former employees with the respect they deserved.
“We are old men and women who no longer fear death,” he mentioned.
Source: Punchng.com