Ten widows of policemen, who died on active duty, broke down and wept like babies recently, after their children and property were bundled out of their quarters at the barracks of the Mobile Police Unit 20 Ikeja and dumped outside like unwanted baggage.
Since their eviction from the police quarters, the women have been running from pillar to post, seeking where they and their kids could lay their heads. Their predicament was made worse by the fact that it is rainy season and the element has neither friend nor foe.
Most of the women said that they knew they would have to leave sooner or later, but were shocked that they could be treated so shabbily by the same Nigeria Police Force, their husbands died serving. They had pleaded for time to get another apartment, but the police authourity refused, allegedly giving them only a week to vacate the quarters.
According to them, they wanted to collect their husbands’ gratuity, which had not been paid before they moved out, but the matter of the gratuity had become like the classical play of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot.
Mrs. Stella Mubo, wife of late Inspector Simon Mubo, said: “We were just given three days to vacate the quarters. On the third day, some policemen came to throw us out. I and my children have been sleeping outside since then.
We have nowhere to go!” Recalling how they were evicted, Mrs. Mubo said the widows received a missive from police authourities that their presence was needed at GRA Ikeja and had promptly dashed to the place. “We thought that the call had something to do with our deceased husbands.
We’d been awaiting the entitlements due to our husbands,” said Mrs. Mubo. “We were however shocked when we were told to vacate the quarters with immediate effect.” The widows thought it was a big joke until May, 31, 2014, when mobile policemen stormed their homes and started flinging their property out of the quarters.
Mrs. Mubo whispered in a pained voice: “There was nothing we could do. How can somebody serve Federal Government for over 20 years and die in active service and his widow and children would be thrown out like a piece of rag without the man’s entitlement?” Mrs. Mubo said that her husband died on August 22, 2010 and that she had not received any sort of payment from the police.
She added: “The only thing we received was burial expenses. I have been running up and down, borrowing money to pursue the payment of my husband’s gratuity. “I don’t really know what the problem is. I have been going to the Pension Alliance and they have been telling me the money was not ready.”
She cried: “The injustice is too much! This will not encourage me to advice any of my children to join the police force. They made me to cry and I cry every day.
I want the police to pay us so that we can get accommodation!” Meanwhile, the police said that the widows had lived in those quarters for more than seven and eight years, which was grossly against mobile police rule. The widows were actually supposed to leave immediately their husbands were buried. Bu the angry women insisted that it was a lie. That they had not stayed up to those years.
“Its’ just three years and few months that my husband died,” said Mrs. Mubo. “How can the police, which are responsible for law and order, do this? Can a landlord under the law issue three days quit notice to a tenant and go ahead to execute it? If such matter is reported to the police, how will they handle it?” If I had been paid, why would I still be in the barrack? I’m suffering there.
There is no renovation there! When they came, I was not around. They forced the door open and threw my things away.”
Mrs. Alice E. Bello said that before the death of her husband, they lived at Block 1 Flat 7 in the Mopol 20 Barracks. While Mrs. Mubo said she was given only three days’ notice, Mrs. Bello insisted she was given two-day.
She said: “They brought the notice on a Thursday, on Friday; we went to their office to beg them, to give us more time because we had not collected our husband’s benefit. My husband died in car accident in 2010.
Even the burial money, they had not been paid. When I went there for my husband’s pension, they told me they did not see his file.” Mrs. Bello said she and other widows had gone to see the Commissioner of Police on Friday to beg him for more time, but the man was not on seat. They were directed to Ngozi Iloh who is the Assistant Commissioner of police, in charge of Administration.
The concerned police woman promised to ask for extra week on behalf of the widows. Iloh’s pleas apparently did not work, as the women woke up on Saturday morning, to see mobile policemen at their door steps. “On Saturday, I was not at home.
I was on duty because I’m managing a cleaning work somewhere. Before I returned from work, they had broken my door, scattered my property and damaged so many things,” recalled Mrs. Bello. She continued: “I have two children.
I was not working before the death of my husband, but after his death, I had no choice. In fact, when I came to the command headquarters, some policemen suggested I look for work because my husband’s benefit would take long to be paid.”
According to her, before she took the cleaning work, she had tried her hand on selling fufu, pepper and okra inside the barrack. “I was living from hand to mouth. If I sell, I will eat. If I did not sell, I will not see something to eat with my children.
My husband was promoted to a sergeant, but he did not wear the rank before he died.” After the mobile policemen had swooped on them, Mrs. Bello said she distributed her property to different friends, especially when she noticed that the rain was beginning to damage them. “There was no place to put my things.I and my children slept in the corridor. That’s where we are still sleeping up till now,” she said. “The police said some people had been paid, it’s a lie! I have not collected a dime! My husband served Nigerian Police Force and this is what happens to his family.”
She explained that she had made several moves to collect her husband’s gratuity and move on with her life, but every time she got to the pension office, she would be told to go and bring documents to show when her husband joined the Nigeria Police Force. She added: “My husband joined at Sokoto. They said I should go and bring letter from there.
There, they demanded for money. They said I should give them transport money that they wanted to collect the paper from Abuja. They demanded between N3,000 to N5,000.” Mrs. Mary James, wife of late Inspector Aghedo James, said her own predicament was worse because the force ejection, led to the loss of some of the documents needed for the collection of her husband’s entitlement. Mrs. James, a mother of five, added: “I lost my husband in 2011.
Ever since then, I had not been paid the benefits. Every time I went there, they gave me excuses that the money was not ready.” They started throwing everything outside. Even the documents of my late husband that I’m using to process the money are nowhere to be found after they threw my belongings out.
I don’t know whether they collected the document. It is a big problem to me. On Friday, the documents were still with me. “I and my children are sleeping anywhere we see. If we sleep here today, tomorrow we look for another place to sleep.”
A police source said that ejecting the women was not against the law because serving mobile policemen needed those quarters. According to him, taking police quarters from dead policemen to hand over to serving policemen is a universal injunction.
The source added that the women had been given enough leverage and time to seek alternative accommodations or family members to live with. The source queried: “We’re in Africa society, where a woman is presumed to be married, not just to her husband, but to her husband’s family members. It becomes their in-laws responsibilities to take care of their brother’s wife.
Where are those relations of the widows and their husbands?” He also mentioned that by virtue of the new pension/gratuity payment scheme obtainable for retired or deceased policemen, the Nigeria Police Force was no longer liable.
“The payment of their husbands’ entitlement has nothing to do with the police anyone. We have private pension administrators. Another police source, a chief Superintendent of Police said: “It’s true; we have a no pension scheme. The old police pension scheme had been taken away from the Nigeria Police Force. The Nigeria Police now operate PenCom, which allows policemen to operate policy with any pension regulator they want. It started about three years ago.
“The pension regulator could delay payment to deceased policemen widows for several reasons. If the wife is not the next of kin, just forget it, no matter how many times they go to the pension regulator, they would never get that money. If the next of kin is a month-old-baby, that woman must take that baby there.
Some policemen are so stupid, that they put their brothers as their next of kin, when they have wives and children. “It’s easier to collect pension money if the policeman retires.
He goes himself to collect his money and is armed with the right documents. But most police widows are illiterates. They don’t know or have not heard about some of the documents the pension regulators asked them to bring.
And some of the pension payments would be delayed if the widows can’t meet the pension regulators’ requirement. As for living in the police quarters; the norm before was that the widows could live there until they collected their late husbands’ entitlements, but not anymore.
Policemen should begin to educate and lecture their wives on different types of documents that pertain to their work. There should be enlightenment workshop for wives of policemen.
But the problem is that some policemen wives will say ‘God forbid, my husband will not die in Jesus name!’ This is not time to be saying such. I am a policeman and I know death can come to any of us, anytime.
Our wives might be in the position of these 10 widows today!” Reacting to the widows eviction, the Network on Police Reforms in Nigeria (NOPRIN), national coordinator, Mr. Okechukwu Nwanguma said: “This is not only injustice of the highest order to those directly affected now but is also a demotivation for serving officers who now know that the same fate may befall their own families when they die.
No policeman or policewoman will be motivated to give his or her best to an institution or country that does not hold any good thing in stock for him or her or die for an organisation that will oppress and maltreat his or her family when he dies. This is surely a disincentive to dedication and sacrifice.
It will only create a mindset whereby serving officers will work towards circumventing the system to get what they can-by any means- while still alive and in service in the belief that when they are gone, there will be nothing for their families.
NOPRIN calls on the IGP to ensure that the evicted widows of the dead police officers and their children are treated fairly in the interest of justice and to avoid the wrong signal it will send to those who are still alive and serving.
“NOPRIN also calls on the IGP to order investigation into the delay in the payment of entitlements of dead officers to their wives and children. This is to ensure that what happened to Police Pension Funds has not repeated itself here.”
Since their eviction from the police quarters, the women have been running from pillar to post, seeking where they and their kids could lay their heads. Their predicament was made worse by the fact that it is rainy season and the element has neither friend nor foe.
Most of the women said that they knew they would have to leave sooner or later, but were shocked that they could be treated so shabbily by the same Nigeria Police Force, their husbands died serving. They had pleaded for time to get another apartment, but the police authourity refused, allegedly giving them only a week to vacate the quarters.
According to them, they wanted to collect their husbands’ gratuity, which had not been paid before they moved out, but the matter of the gratuity had become like the classical play of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot.
Mrs. Stella Mubo, wife of late Inspector Simon Mubo, said: “We were just given three days to vacate the quarters. On the third day, some policemen came to throw us out. I and my children have been sleeping outside since then.
We have nowhere to go!” Recalling how they were evicted, Mrs. Mubo said the widows received a missive from police authourities that their presence was needed at GRA Ikeja and had promptly dashed to the place. “We thought that the call had something to do with our deceased husbands.
We’d been awaiting the entitlements due to our husbands,” said Mrs. Mubo. “We were however shocked when we were told to vacate the quarters with immediate effect.” The widows thought it was a big joke until May, 31, 2014, when mobile policemen stormed their homes and started flinging their property out of the quarters.
Mrs. Mubo whispered in a pained voice: “There was nothing we could do. How can somebody serve Federal Government for over 20 years and die in active service and his widow and children would be thrown out like a piece of rag without the man’s entitlement?” Mrs. Mubo said that her husband died on August 22, 2010 and that she had not received any sort of payment from the police.
She added: “The only thing we received was burial expenses. I have been running up and down, borrowing money to pursue the payment of my husband’s gratuity. “I don’t really know what the problem is. I have been going to the Pension Alliance and they have been telling me the money was not ready.”
She cried: “The injustice is too much! This will not encourage me to advice any of my children to join the police force. They made me to cry and I cry every day.
I want the police to pay us so that we can get accommodation!” Meanwhile, the police said that the widows had lived in those quarters for more than seven and eight years, which was grossly against mobile police rule. The widows were actually supposed to leave immediately their husbands were buried. Bu the angry women insisted that it was a lie. That they had not stayed up to those years.
“Its’ just three years and few months that my husband died,” said Mrs. Mubo. “How can the police, which are responsible for law and order, do this? Can a landlord under the law issue three days quit notice to a tenant and go ahead to execute it? If such matter is reported to the police, how will they handle it?” If I had been paid, why would I still be in the barrack? I’m suffering there.
There is no renovation there! When they came, I was not around. They forced the door open and threw my things away.”
Mrs. Alice E. Bello said that before the death of her husband, they lived at Block 1 Flat 7 in the Mopol 20 Barracks. While Mrs. Mubo said she was given only three days’ notice, Mrs. Bello insisted she was given two-day.
She said: “They brought the notice on a Thursday, on Friday; we went to their office to beg them, to give us more time because we had not collected our husband’s benefit. My husband died in car accident in 2010.
Even the burial money, they had not been paid. When I went there for my husband’s pension, they told me they did not see his file.” Mrs. Bello said she and other widows had gone to see the Commissioner of Police on Friday to beg him for more time, but the man was not on seat. They were directed to Ngozi Iloh who is the Assistant Commissioner of police, in charge of Administration.
The concerned police woman promised to ask for extra week on behalf of the widows. Iloh’s pleas apparently did not work, as the women woke up on Saturday morning, to see mobile policemen at their door steps. “On Saturday, I was not at home.
I was on duty because I’m managing a cleaning work somewhere. Before I returned from work, they had broken my door, scattered my property and damaged so many things,” recalled Mrs. Bello. She continued: “I have two children.
I was not working before the death of my husband, but after his death, I had no choice. In fact, when I came to the command headquarters, some policemen suggested I look for work because my husband’s benefit would take long to be paid.”
According to her, before she took the cleaning work, she had tried her hand on selling fufu, pepper and okra inside the barrack. “I was living from hand to mouth. If I sell, I will eat. If I did not sell, I will not see something to eat with my children.
My husband was promoted to a sergeant, but he did not wear the rank before he died.” After the mobile policemen had swooped on them, Mrs. Bello said she distributed her property to different friends, especially when she noticed that the rain was beginning to damage them. “There was no place to put my things.I and my children slept in the corridor. That’s where we are still sleeping up till now,” she said. “The police said some people had been paid, it’s a lie! I have not collected a dime! My husband served Nigerian Police Force and this is what happens to his family.”
She explained that she had made several moves to collect her husband’s gratuity and move on with her life, but every time she got to the pension office, she would be told to go and bring documents to show when her husband joined the Nigeria Police Force. She added: “My husband joined at Sokoto. They said I should go and bring letter from there.
There, they demanded for money. They said I should give them transport money that they wanted to collect the paper from Abuja. They demanded between N3,000 to N5,000.” Mrs. Mary James, wife of late Inspector Aghedo James, said her own predicament was worse because the force ejection, led to the loss of some of the documents needed for the collection of her husband’s entitlement. Mrs. James, a mother of five, added: “I lost my husband in 2011.
Ever since then, I had not been paid the benefits. Every time I went there, they gave me excuses that the money was not ready.” They started throwing everything outside. Even the documents of my late husband that I’m using to process the money are nowhere to be found after they threw my belongings out.
I don’t know whether they collected the document. It is a big problem to me. On Friday, the documents were still with me. “I and my children are sleeping anywhere we see. If we sleep here today, tomorrow we look for another place to sleep.”
A police source said that ejecting the women was not against the law because serving mobile policemen needed those quarters. According to him, taking police quarters from dead policemen to hand over to serving policemen is a universal injunction.
The source added that the women had been given enough leverage and time to seek alternative accommodations or family members to live with. The source queried: “We’re in Africa society, where a woman is presumed to be married, not just to her husband, but to her husband’s family members. It becomes their in-laws responsibilities to take care of their brother’s wife.
Where are those relations of the widows and their husbands?” He also mentioned that by virtue of the new pension/gratuity payment scheme obtainable for retired or deceased policemen, the Nigeria Police Force was no longer liable.
“The payment of their husbands’ entitlement has nothing to do with the police anyone. We have private pension administrators. Another police source, a chief Superintendent of Police said: “It’s true; we have a no pension scheme. The old police pension scheme had been taken away from the Nigeria Police Force. The Nigeria Police now operate PenCom, which allows policemen to operate policy with any pension regulator they want. It started about three years ago.
“The pension regulator could delay payment to deceased policemen widows for several reasons. If the wife is not the next of kin, just forget it, no matter how many times they go to the pension regulator, they would never get that money. If the next of kin is a month-old-baby, that woman must take that baby there.
Some policemen are so stupid, that they put their brothers as their next of kin, when they have wives and children. “It’s easier to collect pension money if the policeman retires.
He goes himself to collect his money and is armed with the right documents. But most police widows are illiterates. They don’t know or have not heard about some of the documents the pension regulators asked them to bring.
And some of the pension payments would be delayed if the widows can’t meet the pension regulators’ requirement. As for living in the police quarters; the norm before was that the widows could live there until they collected their late husbands’ entitlements, but not anymore.
Policemen should begin to educate and lecture their wives on different types of documents that pertain to their work. There should be enlightenment workshop for wives of policemen.
But the problem is that some policemen wives will say ‘God forbid, my husband will not die in Jesus name!’ This is not time to be saying such. I am a policeman and I know death can come to any of us, anytime.
Our wives might be in the position of these 10 widows today!” Reacting to the widows eviction, the Network on Police Reforms in Nigeria (NOPRIN), national coordinator, Mr. Okechukwu Nwanguma said: “This is not only injustice of the highest order to those directly affected now but is also a demotivation for serving officers who now know that the same fate may befall their own families when they die.
No policeman or policewoman will be motivated to give his or her best to an institution or country that does not hold any good thing in stock for him or her or die for an organisation that will oppress and maltreat his or her family when he dies. This is surely a disincentive to dedication and sacrifice.
It will only create a mindset whereby serving officers will work towards circumventing the system to get what they can-by any means- while still alive and in service in the belief that when they are gone, there will be nothing for their families.
NOPRIN calls on the IGP to ensure that the evicted widows of the dead police officers and their children are treated fairly in the interest of justice and to avoid the wrong signal it will send to those who are still alive and serving.
“NOPRIN also calls on the IGP to order investigation into the delay in the payment of entitlements of dead officers to their wives and children. This is to ensure that what happened to Police Pension Funds has not repeated itself here.”
No comments:
Post a Comment