BENUE PENSIONERS BETRAYED: WHERE DID THE BILLIONS GO?
By Tion Paul
My fellow people of Benue State, let us speak the bitter truth. Our parents, our uncles, our teachers, and our civil servants who gave 30 to 35 years of their lives building this state are being treated worse than beggars in the land they served. They are dying in courtrooms, dragged into endless litigation just to claim what is rightfully theirs – pensions and gratuities.
And yet, between January and June 2025 alone, the Federal Government released over ₦84 billion to Benue State. Yes, ₦84,474,052,476 to be precise. If Governor Hyacinth Alia had the will, just the will, to set aside a modest ₦5 billion monthly, by now ₦30 billion would have been available to clear pension and gratuity arrears. Instead, he has abandoned the elderly to scavenging lawyers, corrupt courtrooms, and banks eager to profit from their suffering.
Let us call this what it is: wickedness.
In case anyone thinks this is political exaggeration, let me point to the facts. At the National Industrial Court in Makurdi, case NICN/MKD/6/2025: Ambegba Ephraim & 56 Ors v. Attorney General & Others, pensioners are claiming ₦688 million in gratuities and arrears. In another garnishee matter, MEX/174/25: Gundu Roseline & 15 Ors v. Attorney General & Others, pensioners secured an order attaching ₦142 million against the state. These are not isolated cases. They are multiplying like wildfire because the government has chosen the path of litigation over compassion, confrontation over settlement.
What happened to the Garnishee and Judgment Debt Committee set up in 2023 by Governor Alia that helped negotiate settlements, paid in installments, and reduced cases in court? Disbanded. Why? Nobody knows. What happened to the Judgment Debt Department in the Ministry of Justice, created to handle these matters? The Alia government is now drowning in cases it cannot win. The truth is simple: this government thrives on delay and denial, not on justice.
Meanwhile, lawyers are pocketing between 10% and 20% professional fees from pensioners’ suffering. A thick corruption economy has sprung up in the system on the blood and sweat of our retirees, because the current government of the state has refused to do the decent thing: pay people their money.
Governor Alia is not just a politician. He is a priest, a Reverend Father. But I ask him today: which gospel are you preaching? Certainly not the gospel of Christ. The Bible says clearly: “The labourer is worthy of his wages” (1 Timothy 5:18). It also says: “Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to act” (Proverbs 3:27). Yet in your power lies over ₦84 billion, but you withhold wages from the very people who built Benue with their sweat.
And to the Chief of Staff, Barrister Moses Atagher, two-time Attorney General and a member of the former Garnishee Committee, you cannot wash your hands like Pontius Pilate. You know the law. You know the futility of fighting pensioners in court. You know the just path, yet you have allowed this circus to continue. You have not bothered to objectively advise the governor to pay the pensioners instead of fighting them in court.
When Alia was campaigning before 2023 elections, he promised that he would clear the arrears of salaries, pensions and gratuities within his first 100 days in office. Luckily, President Bola Tinubu removed oil subsidies and significantly increased federal allocations to states and local governments. All other state governors have since cleared the arrears, but our governor Alia has refused to emulate his counterparts. The governor is yet to clear the arrears of salaries of workers and pensions as he promised.
Benue people are watching. Pensioners are groaning. The courts are flooded. And still, this government pretends all is well.
Enough is enough. A government that cannot honour its retirees cannot be trusted with the future of its youth.
Governor Alia, please set aside at least ₦5 billion monthly. Pay the pensioners. Stop the litigations. End the garnishee embarrassment. Show us that you still remember the God you claim to serve.
Benue must not become the graveyard of its heroes.
Hon Tion Paul Tyover writes from Ankpa/Wadata Council Ward, MkD LG, Benue State.
