A PLEA FOR RESUMPTION OF PAYMENT OF POLICE PENSION ARREARS

About 12 years ago the most frugal president Nigeria has ever known, Olusegun Obasanjo, proved that he could also be benevolent by granting pardon to members of Nigerian Armed Forces (Army, Navy, Airforce and Police) who served in Biafra during the Civil War. Consequently, he gave his then Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Mr. Ekaette, a road map of his intentions. The SGF immediately produced a brilliant letter, which the president did not hesitate to approve.

In January 2007, a consortium of banks paid the retirees what they calculated were their dues. Later, it was discovered that there were still some payments that were due which were not made in 2007 and that there were some retirees that were not captured during the 2007 payments. Sometime last year, the present executive director of Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD), Sharon Ikeazor, commenced the process of addressing these anomalies. Verifications were done and the first batch of payments was made to mostly retirees, who apparently were not paid in 2007 in October 2017. Arrangements were then made to pay other outstanding dues to the other retirees from 2007 a few days after the first batch of payments.

However, while this was going on, problems of interpretations of who exactly is entitled to the payment, in line with the letter of the SGF to President Obasanjo, seem to have stalled the process. Some executive officers of Association of Retired and War Affected Police Officers (ARWAPO), apparently for selfish reasons, seem to think that what the letter meant is that the retirement benefits of ALL affected officers shall be calculated as if such officers had completed 35 years in service before this Nigerian Civil War (irrespective of the number of years served before the outbreak of the Civil War) and that even the ranks held by such officers will not be counted since it is a pardon by the president.

This interpretations by the executives of ARWAPO, which I do not think is correct, with its huge financial implication, has apparently made PTAD to suspend further payments to us the retirees as then SGF recommended to President Obasanjo and which he accepted.

My plea is that the payments be continued since President Buhari’s administration had already released funds for this purpose and which I learnt was adequately captured in 2017 budget. The weird interpretations of the implication of the pardon by former President Obasanjo and the elaborations in the letter by the SGF to President Obasanjo, by some officers of ARWAPO for selfish reasons, should not be allowed to truncate the entire process. - Sir Daniel C. W. Uwaezuoke, Enugu