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Makurdi, the Benue State capital, witnessed an emotional scene on Friday morning as hundreds of retired staff of First Bank of Nigeria Limited, under the Nigeria Union of Pensioners (NUP) First Bank Unit, staged a peaceful but heart-wrenching protest outside the bank’s branch along Bank Road.
Carrying placards that read “First Bank, all your retired staff must not all die!”, “Where is our ₦300 billion pension fund?” and “First Bank, we served you well. Pay us our pension and gratuities,” the elderly protesters, many of whom looked frail, said they had been abandoned for over two decades while billions of naira deducted from their salaries as pension contributions had mysteriously vanished from the bank’s books.
Comrade Tamenor Kwaghzer, Public Relations Officer of the NUP First Bank Unit, told journalists that the retirees had exhausted every internal avenue, including repeated trips to the bank’s Lagos headquarters, only to be denied audience.
“We are not the originators of this action. Our national secretariat has been dialoguing with First Bank management for years to improve our welfare, but it has become a very hard nut to crack,” he said.
He explained that contributions deducted from staff salaries over the years had ballooned to an estimated ₦300 billion, a figure the union confirmed the last time they were briefly granted access to records before being barred. “That money has accrued to ₦300 billion as at the last count when we were given access into the bank. I retired in 1999. It was about that time that the money was like this,” Kwaghzer recalled.
The retirees are particularly incensed that the once-visible pension liability line has now completely disappeared from First Bank’s balance sheet, raising fears that the funds have been wiped out.
Comrade Gabriel Onuh, Secretary of the Makurdi chapter, broke down in tears as he told reporters that many of their colleagues had already died in poverty while waiting for their entitlements. “They have cheated us and so we must cry out. Many of our members are dead and gone. It is the First Bank management’s plan to kill all of us so that they can eat our money, which is over ₦300 billion in their pension account,” he alleged, describing the situation as “genocide” and “killers’ wickedness.”
Onuh said some retirees were paid as little as ₦2,500 to ₦15,000 as final benefits decades ago, amounts that cannot sustain anyone in today’s economy.
Chapter Chairman Comrade Nathaniel Ogwuche appealed for divine intervention and pleaded with First Bank management to “touch their hearts” and listen to the cries of those who dedicated their productive years to building the 130-year-old institution.
The pensioners insist they are not accusing the bank of outright theft but want transparency and immediate payment of accrued benefits. They have called on the Federal Government, the Central Bank of Nigeria, and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to intervene urgently before more retirees die in hardship.
As at the time of filing this report, First Bank is yet to issue an official statement on the protest and the weighty allegations of a missing ₦300 billion pension liability.
For now, the elderly men and women who once proudly wore the First Bank badge say they have nothing left but their voices, and they are determined to keep crying out until justice is served.
