Retired Police Officers of Nigeria (REPON) has said that they would embark on a peaceful nationwide protest, and threatened to vote out the administration “if their entitlements were not properly paid.”
This was the resolution of the group at its national executive council meeting held at the Jos Inspectorate Mess, yesterday, where the REPON national secretary, retired ASP Sylvanus T. Basadeimbo, briefed our correspondent.
The secretary said: “We have served Nigeria diligently for decades, we have retired and our pensions are not properly paid. We have severally written to all the relevant authorities, but yet we are not been considered.”
He said the way and manner in which retired officers were being treated by pension scheme was a great cause for concern.
“Our plights are ignored. Many of our members have been killed; many are dying. Our children are out of schools, we are made to look like beggars. We wonder wither it is a crime for one to serve his country for 35 years.”
The group said while President Goodluck had scrapped the Police Pension Board, “yet nothing is heard from the committee assigned to see to our complaints.”
Basadiembo said the N24 billion that was allocated for the pension “is no more there, because recently Mrs Menly Smechat was denying that there was nothing in the account, but the minister was saying the money is intact.”
He said: “We feel that retired police officers are being court martial in disguise to go and die. We are looking at it that the federal government is not serious about it.
“Our resolved is that we are embarking on peaceful demonstration, and we will all gang up to vote out the PDP out of government.”
The meeting had in attendance members from 11 states, with apologies from others.
