Cleric to pensioners: Begin prayer, fasting to touch Okorocha’s heart
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NIGERIA: WITH over 10 months debts of pensions coupled with unpaid arrears over the years – some as far back as 1998 – a Catholic priest has asked pensioners in Imo State to embark on fasting and prayer session.
The move, according to the Catholic Archbishop of Owerri, Most Rev. Anthony Obinna, seems reasonable enough as antidote to solve their problems.
Obinna said that with the present situation only prayer and fasting can touch the heart of Governor Rochas Okorocha to hearken to the demands of the suffering pensioners.
The cleric, who spoke with the retirees at the Maria Assumpta Cathedral, Owerri, after a special church service on their deplorable situation, said he believed three days spiritual intercession would turn around their bad situation to good.
The Archbishop said: “The Catholics among you should pray the rosary for three days, while the non-Catholics should pray Psalm 145 and Psalm 150 with fasting for God to touch the mind of Governor Rochas Okorocha to pay arrears owed you pensioners.’’
While urging the pensioners to be strong over their predicament, Obinna stressed that because he knew that there was nothing God cannot do, that was why he decided to appeal to them to fast and pray for early release of their monies.
“I gathered that you have made representations and sent correspondences to government on the need for government to pay your arrears, but what is holding the pay up till now?’’ Obinna wondered.
The cleric said that the present predicament was traceable to the style of governance of Okorocha, while recalling the glorious days of the past in the state.
He said: “In 1982 when I was a lecturer at Alvan Ikoku College of Education, respect of civil servants was more to the institution than to an individual.
“Today the reverse is the case and that explains why a worker and pensioner could be owed for a very long period of time.”
The Archbishop counselled the pensioners not to see the non-payment of their pension as a result of their failure to vote for Okorocha during the 2015 governorship election in the state.
“At the time I was to be made Bishop, not everybody supported me, but today, I am Bishop for everybody,’’ he said.
Representatives of the pensioners said they came to the church to seek God’s intervention in their worrisome plight, after they sent delegations and other means to the governor with no positive results.
Chief Hyacinth Onyekwere, who spoke on behalf of the retirees, said: “We have sent representations, sent correspondences, used the media to convey the predicaments of Imo pensioners to Gov. Okorocha but no positive treatment has come our way.
“It is because of the failure of all these measures that made us to come to seek the face of God and that the Archbishop, as the most high servant of God will also reach the governor to speak on our behalf,’’ he added.
