Police pensioners seek government ’s intervention
•‘Probe past, current IGs over rot at college’
THE National Assembly has been urged to prevail on the Police authorities to pay their entitlements after years of service to their fatherland.
A group of retired policemen led by Mr. Abiodun Sanni, a retired Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP), who spoke with The Guardian, 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 Tiamiyu Adeyemi, Solomon Jegede, Waheed Bello, Kayode Bamidele (deceased), Olawale Oludotun and Jimoh Rabiu. Of the seven, Sanni and the late Bamidele have neither been paid pensions nor gratuities, while the rest were paid only their gratuities.
He, however, observed that those paid gratuities only received payments covering 25 years instead of 35 years they put in service.
“We have sent all our papers to Police Pensions Office, but have not heard from them. It has been a question of ‘come today, come tomorrow’. The Police Pensions Office people keep saying that our files are still being processed but a source at the office told us that they have not been able to do any meaningful work on the files since the police pensions scam was uncovered.”
Meanwhile, a chieftain of the Save Nigeria Group, Yinka Odumakin, at the weekend, said the Federal Government should probe all former Inspectors General of Police who are still alive, including the current one, Muhammed Abubakar, over the rot at the Police College, Ikeja.
Odumakin said all of them should be made to account for all the money that was given to them by the Federal Government for the running of the college. Those indicted, according to him, should be tried for murder.
President Goodluck Jonathan personally paid an unscheduled visit to Lagos last week where he observed the decrepit and abysmal condition of the college.
The President’s visit was followed by a documentary aired by Lagos-based Channels Television, which highlighted the deplorable state of facilities at the college built 73 years ago by the colonial government.
Many civil society groups, including well-meaning Nigerians, have called for a thorough probe into how the fund disbursed for the running of the college and others across the country was spent.
Odumakin said: “Where is Kenny Martins, the guy that Obasanjo used to raise police equipment fund? They raised billions of naira from that project, where have they put the money? So, from Mike Okiro to Tafa Balogun to all the IGs that are still alive, they should come and account for what they did to that place during their tenure. How can you train people in that kind of place? So, all the former IGs, including the present one, should come and account for all the money that has been spent in that place.”
