They once stood guard over the country. Now they are the ones asking to be seen.
Since November 1, retired police officers have occupied the headquarters of the National Pension Commission (PenCom) in Abuja, and they say they are not leaving until alerts start landing in their bank accounts. Many are elderly. Many are sick. All of them, they say, are tired of waiting.
“We have received unfulfilled promises for too long,” said retired Chief Superintendent of Police Mannir M. Lawal Zaria, National Coordinator of the Union of Retired Police Officers under the Contributory Pension Scheme. “We can no longer accept assurances without action. That is why we decided to come here and remain until we begin receiving alerts in our bank accounts.”
For these retirees, the pension fight is no policy debate. It has been the backdrop of their retirement for 16 years, a long run of agitation, meetings and promises that never turned into money. In April, they took their protest to the Presidential Villa. The government offered them two roads: a complete exit from the Contributory Pension Scheme, or an alternative called Option B. Officials said exit would take too long and the funds were not ready, but that Option B was funded, staffed and ready to go. The retirees chose to trust, accepting it in good faith on the promise that payments would begin by September.
September came and went, and nothing happened.
The broken promise stung almost as much as the missing money. In a fresh statement, the retirees insisted that accepting Option B was never surrender. They called it an act of patriotism and maturity, a chance given to dialogue. “Our patience is not weakness. Our cooperation is not surrender. Our future is not negotiable,” they declared.
Retired DSP Joseph Akubo, who chairs the protest planning committee, said what hurts most is the gap between what these men gave and what they now live on. “It is appalling that men who gave their youthful lives to serve Nigeria are now languishing in poverty, penury and sickness because no adequate attention is given to them after retirement,” he said. He wondered how officers who spent their best years protecting the country could be left to suffer while a committee report, due within two weeks, still has not surfaced months later.
The union says the trail of delays is long. National Secretary Elnathan D. Jared, a retired ASP, said the National Assembly passed a bill on the matter and sent it to President Bola Tinubu in March, but it did not receive assent. The President then set up an actuarial committee in July and gave it 14 days to report. Months on, Jared alleged, the committee has finished its work, but its chairman, the Minister of Finance, has yet to release the report.
Now the retirees want three things: immediate implementation of Option B, including the agreed debarment allowances; a realistic timetable showing when processes will be completed and when money will be paid; and the intervention of the President, the Finance Minister, the PenCom Director-General and the Inspector-General of Police.
If that does not happen, they warn, they will go back to their original demand for the total withdrawal of the Police from PenCom, and push for an independent Police Pension Board.
For now, the men who once kept watch for the nation have set up a vigil of their own, and they say it will last until the money arrives.