Johnkennedy Uzoma, Owerri
Suspected hired thugs, on Tuesday, in Owerri, Imo State capital, descended heavily on protesting pensioners at the entrance of Imo State Government House, flogging them with canes.
The pensioners matched to the streets of Owerri before arriving at the Government House, in Owerri, in protest of their five months unpaid pension and gratuities.
The protest brought the number to five in less than a month the senior citizens had taken their grievances of nonpayment of pensions and gratuities by the Governor Hope Uzodinma-led administration.
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The thugs upon sighting the pensioners quickly used canes, formed barricade, to stop them from evading the government house main gate.
But the senior citizens who were resolute defiled the order which resulted to the thugs flogging them, randomly.
While the retirees were shouting and surging, a detachment of police operatives led by an assistant commissioner of Police, AJ Moses arrived the scene.
Immediately on their arrival, they started to disperse the thugs, while the police chief started appealing to the pensioners.
The pensioners, who were on a shouting match, accused the government of being insensitive to their plights.
Addressing some newsmen during the protest, a pensioner, Ebenezer Ibekwe, said that the thugs were sent by the government.
Ibekwe said that he retired as a secondary school principal, in 2011, said that the thugs had poured water on them on their way to the government house in a bid to stop them from embarking on the protest.
He said that no amount of intimidation by the state government would stop them from continually demanding their arrears of pensions and gratuities untill it is paid to them.
He said, “thugs were flogging us their, fathers and mother. I pity them because they have dug their graves.
“At Warehouse junction, while we were coming, they accosted us and were pouring water on us. This has never happened in this state before.
“The monies we worked for and the government is sending urches,idiots and never do Wells to assult people who are old enough to be their fathers, mothers and grandparents.”
Reacting, the Senior Special Assistant to Governor Uzodimma on Print Media, Modestus Nwamkpa, denied the flogging of the pensioners by the thugs
He reiterated government position against any illegal protest in the state
Nwamkpa, said that the government had discovered that most of the protesters were ‘ghost pensioners’ who were being used by the opposition politicians to discredit the performances of the state government.
