A former Anambra State Police Commissioner, Aderemi Adeoye, says the complaints of poor welfare echoed by retired policemen during recent protests in parts of Nigeria are true reflections of the economic challenges being faced by ex-cops whose pensions are unpaid years after their exit from service. In an interview with Channels Television, Adeoye says no retired officer should die in poverty after 35 years? meritorious service to the nation.

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What are your thoughts as a retired police commissioner watching fellow retired officers protest the non-payment of their pensions after years of service?

The Contributory Pension Scheme does not meet the aspiration and the minimum expected standard of living for one who has served this country for at least 35 years. That is a lifetime. For most of these retired police officers, policing is the only thing they know how to do; they have no secondary skills or any other profession they can fall back upon after retirement.

It?s noteworthy that whilst in service, these officers contributed 8% of their monthly salary to the pension scheme. The Federal Government contributed 10% to give a total of 18%, in accordance with the Pension Reform Act of 2014.

Now, the first problem is that these benefits are never received on time. I think the system is inefficient and ineffective. For example, after retirement, even as a commissioner of police, you have to wait for about two years before you get your benefits. From the rank of commissioner of police downwards, your salary is stopped the very day you retire. For the two years of waiting, nobody cares how you feed, how you buy medication, how you pay your children?s school fees, or where you live. So, within that period, many retired officers die off. That is the reality. They die off.

When the benefits eventually come, they give it in bits and pieces. For example, they give you half of your gratuity while the rest is distributed over monthly pension payments. Now, the amount is so paltry. A retired commissioner of police used to earn about N87,000 as a monthly pension until recently, when the president ordered an increment. After that increment, a retired police commissioner gets N15,000 more. So, he earns about N100,000. Of course, these are officers who retired many years before me. I have not gotten mine, so I don?t know yet. I retired over a year ago.

You already know you?d wait two years before receiving any pension or gratuity?

Yes, I programmed my mind that I have to wait for two years before I get my gratuity or pension. Pension comes after gratuity.

Many officers look forward to this gratuity to set up small businesses. Some even need it to complete their house projects for shelter for their families. So, many are depressed and dejected that the system does not care. That is the message being sent out by the inefficiency of the system. The amount itself is nothing to write home about, and prompt payments do not happen.

Would you say the recent protest represents the true scale of discontent among retired police officers?

Seeing the protests on television, I can tell you that they represent the majority of the retirees who are affected. Everybody is affected; no police retiree is exempt. Every retiree who is a police officer from the rank of commissioner of police downwards is affected. Those you see on television are a microcosm ? a very small, insignificant, infinitesimal number of the population of police retirees.

How reassuring are the claims of the Inspector-General of Police that the issues raised by the protesting retirees are being addressed and that the demonstrators may just be unaware?

I read about the IGP?s meeting with the leaders of the protesters. I was not there. However, the report I got of the proceedings at the meeting portrayed the IGP as being sensitive and concerned about the welfare of the officers. The problem was not his creation; it had existed before he came into office. And when he came in, he had been rubbing minds with officers to see a way to ameliorate the situation.

Initially, he was not in support of the exit of the police from the contributory pension scheme. His question was: ?Exit to where?? The answer to that is: exit to wherever the military, the DSS (Department of State Services), the NIA (National Intelligence Agency), exited to.

Before the Contributory Pension Scheme, there was the Defined Benefits Scheme. I don?t know which is better, but the fact is that an army captain, for example, gets about N300,000 in monthly pension. That?s the equivalent of a deputy superintendent of police. While the commissioner of police gets less than N100,000. So, you can easily see the injustice in the system. The police officers spend all their lives protecting the nation and the citizenry. And what is good for the goose should be good for the gander. There is an urgent need to revisit this issue promptly.

I?m also aware that there?s a bill before the House of Representatives, and they have moved it now to the Committee of the Whole. Maybe when that happens, they will establish the Nigerian Police Force Pension Board and exit the police from the Contributory Pension Scheme.

The IG, on his part, has recently informed that he is looking inward to see how to put measures in place to augment what is payable from internal police resources. That would be a welcome development, but the pronouncement is not the desired result; it is implementation. The devil is in the details. When that is implemented, it will give relief to a lot of police retirees, many of whom at present die before their time.

What is your message to retired police officers taking part in the protests?

I want to reach out to my colleagues, retired officers, who, even as they showcase to the world the plight of retired police officers, must not lose their sense of policing.

They must not do anything that will allow miscreants or people who do not mean well for the nation to hijack the protests. They must always be law-abiding and be peaceful in their conduct. They must have confidence in the leadership ? both of the country and the force ? to resolve the problem. We must retain this confidence because when hope is lost, all is lost. We must keep hope alive, and better days shall come. (Channels TV)

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