Demand establishment of police pension board, exit from CPS
Police retirees under the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) stormed the National Assembly in Abuja, yesterday, in protest over unpaid pensions and their forced inclusion in the CPS.
The retirees representing various state chapters lamented the severe hardship they face due to the failure of the National Pension Commission (PenCom) to pay their entitlements.
They reiterated their position on the need for the Federal Government to remove them from the CPS and establish a police pension board in lieu.
Coordinator of the protest, Christopher Effiong, a retired Superintendent of Police (SP), said they were at the National Assembly Complex to press forward their agitation that had been with the legislature for the past three years.
Offiong, who is also the Chairman of Cross River State Chapter of Police Retirees, said: “For over a decade now, Nigeria Police Force (NPF) Retirees under the CPS has painstakingly, lawfully and peacefully been agitating to be given the rightful placement in the Defined Benefits Scheme (DBS), the premise under which most of us enlisted in the NPF, which guarantees the payment of pension and gratuity to an officer upon retirement.
“We believe that our peaceful and legal approach to this agitation would not be taken for granted by you.
We must also appreciate both the members of the upper and the lower chambers, who have also painstakingly taken the matter through several sessions of legislative processes, including investigative hearings, public hearings and passage of Police Exit Bill from CPS and Police Pension Board Bill in our favour, privately initiated bills by Sen Elisha Abbo and Francis Waive of the House of Representatives in the 9th National Assembly.”
Vice Chairman, Senate Committee on Police Affairs, Yinusa Akintunde, who sympathised with retired police officers, said the National Assembly was meeting with police authority to resolve the problem.
During the protest, they displayed placards with messages such as “NPF pension defrauding police retirees, SOS”, “Police officers are dying in penury under the contributory pension scheme”, and “CPS is a death sentence against the police!”
This is not the first time police retirees have protested at the gate of the National Assembly. In September 2021, retired officers from about 27 states stormed the National Assembly demanding their pension.
