We write to you today not just as citizens, but as elders who have given our strength, our years, and our service to the light of this nation. We write with hearts heavy with a peculiar blend of fading hope and resilient faith, compelled by a silent crisis that threatens the dignity and survival of retirees of the defunct Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) under the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS).
First, we must, with sincere gratitude, acknowledge and commend your administration’s recent decisive action;the approval of ₦758 billion in Government bonds to clear pension liabilities. This monumental step is a beacon of hope, a signal that the welfare of those who built our country is being prioritized. For this, Sir, we are profoundly thankful.
Yet, within this light, we remain trapped in a shadow of painful exclusion. It is with confirmed and aching certainty that we inform you: while this commendable initiative moves forward, no funds have been released for the legitimate pension increases and arrears owed specifically to PHCN CPS pensioners. We have been to our Pension Fund Administrators; the answer is a consistent, demoralizing silence. The ledger shows a credit of zero, while our lives bear the mounting cost of this delay.
At PENCOM, the Director of CPS Mr Usman Musa is embedded with a stereotype presentation on why we are not among the Federal Government of Nigeria workers our president is extending his magnanimity to.
Your Excellency, the entity known as PHCN no longer exists. It cannot honor these obligations. The legal and moral responsibility now rests solely, and squarely, on the Federal Government of Nigeria. We are not asking for a gift; we are appealing for the fulfillment of a lawful contract, for the redemption of a promise made to us when we were still in service, powering homes, industries, and the very heartbeat of Nigeria.
This continued exclusion is not merely a bureaucratic oversight; it is a source of profound hardship and gnawing uncertainty. We are talking about men and women who watched transformers in the rain and toiled in substations under the sun. Today, many of us watch as our life-saving medications become unaffordable luxuries. We see our modest dreams of a peaceful retirement clouded by anxiety over the next meal or unpaid utility bills. The dignity we earned through decades of work is being eroded, day by day, while we wait for what is rightfully ours.
Therefore, with the utmost respect, fueled by passion for justice and compassion for our fellow pensioners, we fall before your kind heart and authoritative office to plead:
- Approve and effect the immediate release of the specific funds required to settle all outstanding pension increase arrears for PHCN CPS pensioners. Let the machinery of compassion move for us as it has begun to move for others.
- Issue a direct and unambiguous directive to all relevant ministries, departments, and agencies—especially the National Pension Commission (PenCom) and the Ministry of Power—to include the liabilities of PHCN CPS pensioners in ALL ongoing and future pension backlog clearance programmes. We must no longer be the forgotten line item in the nation’s ledger.
- Provide us and the nation a clear, public, and committed timeline for the implementation and payment of these arrears. We deserve to know when our long night will end.
Your Excellency, your legacy is being woven with threads of bold reforms and compassionate intervention. We have trusted in your mantra of “Renewed Hope.” We still do. That hope, for us, is now personified in you. We believe in your innate sense of fairness, your renowned spirit of Omoluabi, and your deep-seated commitment to social responsibility.
Do not let the lights we once helped to keep ablaze across Nigeria dim in our own twilight years. Grant us this justice. Let our old age be warmed by the assurance that our nation remembers and rewards our service.
We await your favourable, compassionate, and swift response, praying that God Almighty will grant you the wisdom and strength to heal this wound.
Respectfully and hopefully yours,
ROWLAND ASHIEMAMHO ISEH . staff number 423465 .phone number 08034720175 email address isehrowland@gmail.com.
EMEKA NWAOHA.
STAFF NUMBER
373709.
PHONE NUMBERS
08033026516 . 09156111041.
EMAIL ADDRESS.
CHARLIEUK60@GMAIL.COM.
KANGPE AKONS GUGYAR
STAFF NO:610225
PHONE NUMBERS:
08036811942 09945773374
EMAIL ADDRESS. kanpeakons@gmail.com
ERIYE FELICIA OGUGU. STAFF NO. 566720. PHONE NO. 08033202478. EMAIL ADDRESS ogugu543@gmail.com.
DAMILOLA OMOSEBI
STAFF NO 348047
PHONE NO 08023231502
EMAIL peerlessrubby@gmail.com
On behalf of the Agitated, Patient, and Hopeful PHCN CPS Pensioners,
[A Coalition of PHCN CPS Pensioner Groups]
Signed,
For the Forgotten, Once the Keepers of Light.
