NPA pensioners to protest over unpaid benefits

Retirees of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) have threatened to embark on a nationwide protest over 16 years accrued unpaid constitutional pension benefits, which according to them, has subjected

Addressing a press conference in Lagos, recently, a body under the aegis of the Nigerian Ports Authority Pensioners Welfare Association led by its President, Mr Charles Ayo Binitie, stated that the protest which would include shutting all the nation’s seaports, will commence in seven days’ time if the NPA management fails to accede to their demands by urgently implementing the constitutionally stipulated every five years payment increment which has been denied them since 2008.

Binitie further lamented that many NPA retirees had been subjected to living in abject poverty, and dying daily because of hunger, and their inability to afford good medical care for the pensioners who are not covered by the company’s health policy.

The Association’s President further stated: “It is sad and regrettable to say the least, that amid the biting inflation and economic downturn in Nigeria, only a few NPA retirees receive up to  N100,000,while more than 50% of them earn between N50,000, to as low as N30,000 monthly.”

Expatiating, Binitie said, “Despite the fact that the NPA remains  a first grade parastatal like the NNPC, her retirees were paid peanuts, and their so-called increment falls short of the constitutional provision in Section173, Sub Sect.3. Still, even when that law states that all pensioners are entitled  to pay increase every five  years and whenever there is increment for the  in service, however the  management just adds whatever amount she  likes, which mostly hovers between 3 - 11.5 percent.”

The association’s leader decried the fact that since 2008, the NPA management had failed to implement this incremental policy despite efforts made by the retirees to see it done

“We have written to the National  Salaries, lncomes and  Wages Commission (NSlWC), the Presidency through the Secretary to Government of the Federation (SGF) over this pension benefits progression, and have presented relevant documents to NSIWC ,but nothing concrete has been done till now.

“In fact, the NPA is yet to furnish the Wages Commission with its documents for over 15 years now, so that the necessary upward review can be made,” he added.

He equally stated that the management’s argument had always been that the NPA Pensioners Welfare Association was factionalised, which according to him was not true.

He explained that the Association was in the past actually  not functional due to various  cases instituted in some courts, adding: “In one of the judgements of the Lagos High Court Ikeja,the judge instructed the Board of Trustees to hold  an AGM of all the pensioners and thereafter, conduct an election; an action which consequently led  to my emergence as the body’s incumbent President.”

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He further said that, though the NPA management allegedly instigated another group, and instituted a case of impersonation against him in court, which lasted for five years, but ended in his favour.

He averred that presently the Association speaks with one voice after five years of protracted legal battle which began in October 2019 and ended in his victory on September 19, 2025 when the Apapa Magistrate Court 5 declared him the authentic president of the pensioners’ body.

Binitie further stressed that the retirees’ plight had become unbearable, urging well-meaning Nigerians and the Presidency, to prevail on the NPA, to “expeditiously do the needful by paying them their constitutionally stipulated benefits from 2008 to date, including the increase accruing from the 2024 new minimum wage.”

While reacting to the claims by the association, Ikechukwu Onyemekara, the General Manager, Corporate and Strategic Communications Division at the NPA, described them as spurious.

“Let me start by saying that as a very responsible organisation and the management of the Nigerian Port Authority over the years, since its inception, has been committed to the welfare of their workers including pensioners.”

“We are not owing our pensioners. I like to put it on record that our pensioners are even paid before the staff that are currently working. They get their salaries and their entitlement before and they are also entitled to medical care. And that is our major obligation which we are fulfilling,” he further reiterated.