By Onwukwe Ezeru, Abia
A group of retired police officers from four South East and South South states has petitioned the National Assembly (NASS) over the alleged non-payment of their 11 years pension arrears.
They signed the petition on the platform of the “War-affected Nigeria Police Retirees,” comprising no fewer than 100 members from Abia, Akwa Ibom, Enugu and Rivers states.
The group in Umuahia stated that the retirees were among those who were reinstated into the service on May 29, 2000 by former President Olusegun Obasanjo.
The group urged NASS to order the Director-General of the Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate to pay the arrears “without further delay.”
They expressed regrets that the directorate “has refused to pay our entitlements since we were reinstated by the Federal Government.”
They said that the directorate raised their hope and dashed it after carrying out “a series of verifications, pay rolling and bio-metric of our members since 2015.
“All our expectations have been in vain,” they stated, adding that they were suspecting that their money had gone into wrong hands in the directorate.
They wondered why the directorate would continue “to starve us of our entitlements after Obasanjo had granted us amnesty, retired and reinstated us.”
They described as doubtful, the explanation by the directorate that the computer used for their bio-metric verification “was
malfunctioning.”
The group, which alleged that many of its colleagues had “died of starvation,” called on the Federal Government to immediately institute a probe into the delay in the payment of their entitlements.
The emotion-laden petition, which was addressed to the leaderships of NASS, was copied to the Director-General of Pencom, Chairman, Senate Committee on Pensions and the Chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related Offences Commission.
It was jointly signed by Rev.-Msgnr Raphael Okpara (Enugu), Benson Ohabughiro and Michael Chelobi (Abia), Okon Ekpe and Etim Edet (Akwa Ibom) and Jacob Jacob (Rivers).
