The Federal Government has assured retired soldiers that their entitlements will be paid this week, bringing an end to a week-long protest at the Ministry of Finance in Abuja.
By 3:00 p.m. on Monday, the protesting ex-servicemen had dismantled their canopy and dispersed after a meeting with officials from the Ministry of Finance, the Military Pension Board, the Nigerian Army Welfare Insurance Scheme (NAWIS), and the Security Debarment Allowance department.
Leader of the protesters, Retired Sergeant Ekundayo Alisame, confirmed that the assurance came after a closed-door session where veterans presented their grievances. He said government officials collected the names of those yet to receive their full payments and pledged to begin disbursements before the weekend.
“They collected the names, and they promised that from now till the weekend, they will start to pay all those NAWIS, Benford, and whosoever that claimed not to have received some part of his payment,” Alisame told journalists.
The retired soldiers had staged the protest over discrepancies in the payment chart used to calculate their benefits. According to Alisame, while some retirees were paid using a July–December schedule, others—including members of his group—were meant to be covered under the January–June chart.
“What the authorities told us today is that the chart being used to prepare our benefits is not supposed to be so. We fall within the range of January to June. That is our bone of contention,” he explained.
