A group of retired policemen have appealed to members of the National Assembly to prevail on the Police authorities to pay their entitlements after years of service to their fatherland.
Mr. Abiodun Sanni, a retired Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) who spoke with National Mirror, said they were demobilised from the Nigerian Army in 1979 to reinforce the Police, but have not been paid their entitlements since retiring from the force in 2006.
He listed those affected to include Messrs Tiamiyu Adeyemi, Solomon Jegede, Waheed Bello, Kayode Bamidele (late), Olawale Oludotun and Jimoh Rabiu. Of the seven, Sanni and the late Bamidele have neither been paid pension nor gratuity, while the rest were paid only their gratuities.
Sanni however pointed out that those paid gratuities only received payments covering 25 years instead of the 35 years they put in service.
He said: “We were all transferred from the Nigerian Army to the Police and were asked to pay back the money we collected from the Army to the treasury, which we all did in order to receive our full benefits on retirement. But to our surprise, some of us were paid for 25 years instead of 35 years while others were not paid at all.”
Appealing to the National Assembly to come to their aid, the retired police officer disclosed that one of them, Bamidele, who retired as an inspector and was yet to be paid both pension and gratuity, was killed recently by a hit-andrun driver.
“Bamidele was killed by a hit-and-run driver while doing the okada business (commercial motor cycling) because there was nothing he could do after retirement. Up till today, the driver of the vehicle had not shown up. Four of his children have dropped out of school because of lack of funds to pay their fees as their mother who is the only one assisting them has fallen sick and can’t do anything,” he narrated painfully.
Further decrying their predicament, he regretted that all efforts to get the Police Pensions office to have their papers processed and get paid, have not yielded any positive result.
“We have sent all our papers to the Police Pensions office, but have not heard from them. It has been a question of come today-come tomorrow. They said our files are being processed but an insider source told us that staff has not been able to do any meaningful work since the Police pension scam was uncovered,” Sanni noted.
National Mirror
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