Over 2,000 senior police officers, who were hurriedly retired in the wake of the appointment of the incumbent Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, have yet to collect their terminal benefits, almost seven months after they were eased out of office.
The figure has only added to that of others, whose total terminal benefits have not also not been paid, ten years after their disengagement from the force.
The affected former officers, according to The Point’s findings, are within the rank of commissioners of police, assistant inspectors general of police and deputy inspectors general of police.
The reason for the long delay in the payment of the terminal benefits of these categories of senior officers by the police authorities could not be immediately ascertained.
A source within the Association of Retired Police Officers of Nigeria, however, hinted that the development might not be unconnected with the paucity of funds that has lately hit police formations across the country.
Independent checks by The Point revealed that the Police Pension Administration Commission appeared to have deliberately delayed the payment of the gratuity of the affected officers, as a Presidency source, very close to the Ministry of Finance, said that the money for the terminal benefits of the affected officers was released a week after their retirement.
While the newly retired senior officers seem to have taken the development with a pinch of the salt, those who left the force earlier have also been kicking, as they claimed that their full retirement benefits had yet to be paid to them 10 years after leaving service.
The retired officers had planned a show down with the government should their entitlements be delayed further.
Although the affected officers have been operating under the aegis of the Association of Retired Police Officers with branches spread across the states of the federation, they recently sent out a Save-OurSoul message, signed by Emmanuel Akeredolu Adekanye and Esau Godfrey, on behalf of others in Okene, Kogi State.
The Association roundly accused PENCOM of being insensitive to their plight, adding that the commission had unwittingly compounded their problems as they had been “living lives of destitutes since retirement”.
The association explained further that officers mostly affected by the non-payment of full gratuity retired ten years ago.
Independent investigation by The Point indicated that, “PENCOM paid only between N1 million and N2 million to each affected officers at the initial level and has ever since paid them between N25,000 and N30,000 monthly”.
The Point had earlier gathered that the affected officers, both the old and newly retired, picked holes in the method of disbursement of their gratuity, which they described as “fraudulent and arrantly frustrating.”
How then do you want us to feed; to train our children by preventing a case of diminishing responsibility on the home front? Now, we cannot invest in anything as we die in silence. PENCOM should pay us now
They claimed further that the parameters used by PENCOM officials had perpetually hindered them from investing their gratuity on tangible projects that could relieve them of their daily economic challenges.
“We truly deserve to be treated better, having served the country meritoriously”, one of the affected officers, who resides in Ikoyi, Lagos, told The Point, under the condition of anonymity.
According to him, “Some of us served our father land excellently for 35 years, and what did we get in return?
We have simply been forgotten as evident in the shoddy treatment being meted out to us by PENCOM officials, who are now treating us like unwanted servants. It is our rights that we are demanding, but they have somewhat reduced us to mere beggars”.
While pleading with President Muhammadu Buhari to use his good offices to address their plight without further delay, Mr. Hassa Danladi, a retired commissioner of police, said, “How then do you want us to feed; to train our children by preventing a case of diminishing responsibility on the home front?
Now, we cannot invest in anything as we die in silence. PENCOM should pay us now. It is our right and we have to fight for it”.
Efforts by The Point to get the reaction of the Force spokesman, Mr. Don Awunah, were not successful. Awunah, a commissioner of police, did not pick calls made to his phone.
