Protests As Oyebanji Battles Pensioners In Ekiti

Ekiti State Governor Biodun Abayomi Oyebanji is now at loggerhead with the Nigeria Union of Pensioners, NUP, in Ekiti State on the failure of the Union to reelect its immediate past chairman, Joel Olomi Akinola, for another four years.

Akinola, who was elected to lead the Union in December 2021, had, toward the end of his first term in office sought reelection for another four-year term , which would have begun in January 2025.

The delegate conference in which he would have been elected was slated for November 28, 2024.

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The Delegate Conference of the Union discovered discrepancies in the account of the Union. An investigative committee was set up to look into the account.

The investigative committee met several times, during which Akinola and members of his State Executive Committee (SEC) were queried on discrepancies in their account. The committee later confirmed that there was mismanagement of funds of the Union.

The investigative committee recommended that a caretaker committee be set up to oversee the affairs of the Union for three months at the end of which election to the SEC should be conducted. It also recommended that the Akinola executive refund part of the Union’s fund they could not properly account for. The committee also recommended that Akinola and his executive should not contest election into NUP offices for the next four years.

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Governor Oyebanji insisted that whatever happens, Akinola should not be disgraced out of office because of his eulogies for the governor on FRCN weekly programme, Pensioners’ Half Hour, every Tuesday. Akinola also insisted that the Union should re-elect him to office. It was then that the national body of the NUP insisted that Akinola cannot be relected into office until after four years.

The stance of the headquarters of NUP in Abuja infuriated Oyebanji and Akinola. Ekiti state government aided Akinola and his team to rent an office in the name of a dissident group, tagged Pensioners Association of Nigeria, PAN, which was registered as a group of artisans with headquarters as the personal residence of Akinola in the GRA of Ado-Ekiti. PAN now have it’s rented office on Bank Road in Ado-Ekiti.

Meanwhile, the Oyebanji administration has since November last year withheld the 1% checkoff dues of pensions in Ekiti, which is due for payment to the NUP. PAN had on the other hand enjoyed tremendous financing by Ekiti State government. This is how the dissident rebellious group has been getting money to sponsor it’s programmes.

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It is now clear that in spite of the huge financial allocation coming to the coffers of Ekiti State government, Governor Oyebanji has been withholding checkoff dues meant to run the affairs of the NUP in Ekiti State. Funny enough, Governor Biodun Abayomi Oyebanji’s father is one of the Pensioners in Ekiti State. It was because of this sentiment that majority of pensioners in the state supported Oyebanji’s election into office. It is an irony of life that it is the same union that Governor Oyebanji is punishing for rejecting to vote in a candidate he is trying to impose on them.

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