Police welfare is not a privilege, it is a prerequisite for police integrity, professionalism, and public safety
By Okechukwu Nwanguma
For decades, Nigeria has approached policing reform from the wrong end of the stick. We speak endlessly about police integrity, professionalism, discipline and effectiveness, yet we deliberately ignore the broken systems within which police officers live and work. Nowhere is this contradiction more evident than in the persistent neglect of police welfare – both in service and in retirement.
The current controversy surrounding the Nigeria Police Force Pension Board Bill, passed by the National Assembly on December 4, 2025, exposes this long-standing hypocrisy. A Bill designed to rescue retired police officers from poverty, illness and indignity is inexplicably stalled in the corridors of power. If altered, diluted or quietly sabotaged, it will confirm what many officers – serving and retired – have always feared: that the Nigerian state demands sacrifice from the police but feels no obligation to care for them in return.
Police welfare is not a side issue. It is central to police reform, public safety and democratic governance. A police institution that pays its officers poorly, denies them allowances, neglects their health, abandons them in retirement and leaves their families insecure cannot reasonably demand professionalism or integrity. Corruption does not occur in a vacuum; it flourishes where institutions fail the people who work for them.
Across Nigeria, police officers are sent on dangerous duties without duty allowances, transport, insurance or adequate equipment. Many fund investigations from their own pockets. Salaries are insufficient and often delayed. Housing is grossly inadequate. Access to quality healthcare is limited. The education of officers’ children is left entirely to personal struggle. Then, after decades of service, officers are dumped into a contributory pension system that has proven incapable of guaranteeing dignity in retirement.
The result is predictable. Officers under severe economic pressure are more vulnerable to corruption, abuse of power and unethical conduct. This is not to excuse misconduct, but to explain its structural roots. Police integrity and effectiveness only work when systems work. Reform cannot be reduced to training manuals and new laws while welfare systems remain broken.
This is why the Police Pension Bill matters. Removing the police from a contributory pension scheme that has failed them and establishing an independent Police Pension Board is not charity – it is justice. It recognises the unique risks and sacrifices associated with policing, just as Nigeria already recognises in relation to the military.
The reported delay in transmitting this Bill to the President, and fears that it may be altered after passage, are deeply troubling. Legislative history has shown that laws can be quietly rewritten between passage and assent, undermining the will of Parliament and the hopes of citizens. Any attempt to tamper with the Police Pension Bill would not only be morally indefensible, it would be a betrayal of thousands of retired officers who have already endured years of neglect.
Government at all levels – federal, state and local – must understand that police welfare is an investment in national security. Police authorities and oversight bodies, including the Police Service Commission and the National Human Rights Commission, must consistently push welfare issues to the forefront of reform discourse. Civil society and the media must also resist the temptation to discuss police accountability without equal attention to police conditions of service.
Improving salaries, allowances and entitlements; guaranteeing decent pensions and gratuities; providing insurance, healthcare, housing and educational support for officers’ children – these are not luxuries. They are the foundations of a humane, accountable and professional police service.
The Police Pension Bill should be transmitted immediately, exactly as passed, without alteration or delay. Anything less sends a dangerous message to serving officers: that loyalty is unrewarded, sacrifice is disposable, and promises are negotiable.
A society that abandons those it arms to protect life and property ultimately endangers itself. If Nigeria is serious about fighting corruption and humanising the police, it must start by fixing the systems that shape police behaviour. Police welfare is not a privilege. It is a prerequisite for public safety and democratic policing.
Okechukwu Nwanguma, Executive Director, Rule of Law and Accountability Advocacy Centre – RULAAC, is a police reform and rule of law advocate. He writes from Lagos
