Lawyer and public affairs analyst, Maxwell Opara, has called for legislation criminalising delays and denial of pension payments, arguing that retirees should not be forced to protest before receiving entitlements earned after decades of service.\n<\/p>\n
Speaking during an interview with ARISE News on Thursday, Opara said failure to pay pensions when due should attract criminal sanctions.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, I think this is high time we criminalised delaying or denial of pension. We should criminalise it. There should be a legislation that we should push up a legislation, where you fail to pay pension as at when due, it should be a criminal offense,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n
He said pensioners who had spent decades serving the country should not have to demand money they were legally entitled to receive.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat somebody will serve a country for 35 years, his own money, he\u2019s not asking you to borrow him money, his own money he suffered for. \u2018Pay me my right, pay me my gratuity, pay me my pension\u2019,\u201d he added.\n<\/p>\n
Opara also condemned the alleged use of tear gas against protesting pensioners, describing it as a violation of their constitutional rights.\n<\/p>\n
He further noted, \u201cIt\u2019s a gross violation of rights. If you\u2019re talking about Section 34, Section 40, it\u2019s a gross violation of rights for tear-gassing the people that are harmless, the people that are harmless, the people that are just protesting, exercising their rights, and you are tear-gassing them.\u201d<\/p>\n
He urged affected pensioners to continue pursuing their demands through lawful means, saying he was willing to provide free legal services to support their cause.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m also ready to offer them free legal services. Nigerian Bar Association, Human Rights Commission, we are also there, and some other public interest litigants can also offer them free legal services,\u201d the lawyer stated. <\/p>\n
According to him, pensioners whose rights were allegedly violated could approach the courts to seek enforcement of their fundamental rights.\n<\/p>\n
He said, \u201cSo, their right has been violated. It is established. Yes, they can go ahead and deny it, because Nigerian Police and some other security agencies in Nigeria, they are good in denial.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cEven the one you have your evidence, they will still go ahead to deny it. The world known them for that. So, denial cannot exonerate them. It is actionable, and they can enforce their right through court.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
The lawyer also criticised the deployment of security personnel during protests by pensioners, arguing that officers should focus on ensuring demonstrations were not hijacked rather than confronting peaceful protesters.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen somebody is protesting, especially you know that the person is carrying black flags, you are there to make sure that that protest is not hijacked by hoodlums. That is the only duty you have to do,\u201d he disclosed.<\/p>\n
Opara further questioned the prolonged delays in the payment of retirees\u2019 entitlements, alleging that some pensioners were subjected to repeated verification exercises and other difficulties before accessing their funds.\n<\/p>\n
He also criticised the National Assembly over what he described as inadequate protection of retirees\u2019 interests, saying stronger legislative oversight could help address the challenges.\n<\/p>\n
Opara said he would seek to sponsor legislation criminalising delayed pension payments if elected to the House of Representatives.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they elect me as a Federal House of Representatives member, I will push the bill to criminalize delay in paying pension. I will make sure that the bill, we push that bill so that all this rubbish will stop,\u201d he concluded.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lawyer and public affairs analyst, Maxwell Opara, has called for legislation criminalising delays and denial of pension payments,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":614093,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[260473,260474,260475,260476,260477,260478,72,255625,176,61,60,260479,174,175],"class_list":["post-614092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-nigerian-athlete","tag-758bn-pension-bond","tag-000-palliatives-to-pensioners","tag-2013-retirees","tag-2025-legislation","tag-advocacy-for-human-rights","tag-business","tag-delayed-payments","tag-finance","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-maxwell-opara","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=614092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614092\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/614093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=614092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=614092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=614092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}