The Niger State chapter of the Association of Retired Police Officers of Nigeria has protested what they described as dehumanising treatment of their members by PenCom.
This is as they demanded the removal of the police force from the Contributory Pension Scheme of PenCom.
The retirees were seen carrying placards with inscriptions such as ‘Police Pensioners Reduced to Beggers’, NPF Pension No AGM, No Dividend Seclared after 5years – Why’, ‘After Serving the Nation for 35years Why Paying Ourselves from What we Contributed’, and ‘We Need Total Exemption of Police from Contributory Pension Scheme’ among others.
The retirees protested from the officers mess area to the state Police command headquarters to deliver their letter of protest to the Commissioner of Police for onward delivery to the Inspector General of Police.
The leader of the protest, Madu Dambuwa, while delivering their letter said a lot of them have died, scores injured, their children out of school after serving the nation for 35 years.
“Some of us got as low as N1.2 million at the end of our service. The IGP should listen to us and if they refused more of this kind of protest would come out.
“Our salary as police retirees is too poor compared to other security forces. Majority of us are earning like N38, 000 monthly while some other security forces gets over N100, 000 monthly as pension. Police gave birth to all other security forces and we should be treated equally,” he said.
They added that Pencom is declaring surplus while retirees under CPS are dying, adding that “Pencom publication recently shows that pension fund has risen to N12. 8 trillion. This is evidently clear that the exit of Police cannot cripple Pencom claims.”
Addressing the protesters, DCP Shehu Abdullahi, said their message would be delivered.
He also informed them that a bill is before the senate concerning their plight.
