By Lola Seriki-Idahosa, Kaduna
Tracereporters –Association of Retired Police Officers Kaduna state chapter has appealed to President Bola Tinubu to sign into law the Bill for an Act To Exit Nigeria Police from the Contributory Pension Scheme.
Chairman of the pensioners, DSP Munir Lawal Zaria during a prayer session on Wednesday at the police officers mess said the appeal became necessary to enable the retired police officers to have the required benefits accrue to them and avoid any case of misappropriation in their retired benefits.
He said: “We, members of the Association of Retired Police join our serving counterparts and police retirees, under the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS), to express our profound gratitude to the Distinguished and Honourable Members of the 9th National Assembly for listening and harking to the yearning of the force in passing and transmitting to Mr. President for his assent to the Bill for an Act to exit Nigeria Police Force from the contributory pension scheme.
According to him, “Following the passage of the bill for the establishment of a Police Pension Board to exclude the Nigeria Police Force from the Contributory Pension Scheme, retirees in their large numbers converged on Kaduna, Northwest Nigeria, Wednesday, to give thanks to God for answering their prayers.
Amidst songs of praise of Hallelujah by christians and Allah Akbar by muslims at the prayer sessions, the retirees are of the strong belief that their livelihoods taken away from them through the Contributory scheme, would now be restored by the passage of the bill.
They commended the 9th Assembly for the sigh of relief, disclosing that the passage of the bill suddenly woke up their members who were bedridden due to the plights occasioned by the Contributory Pension Scheme.Speaking further, Chairman of the pensioners, DSP Munir Lawal Zaria said the passage of the bill was God’s intervention which the retirees sought for last April, but wonderfully and surprisingly, answered on June 6th, 2023 when the NASS passed the bill.”If not God, who must have done this for us”, he excitedly said.
DSP Lawal Zaria noted that Police retirees were facing terrible situation and appealed to the President to rescue them, having described him as a Man of God and People’s Servant.
He accused the Director General of PenCom whom, he said, had been wagging a stumbling block against their exclusion.
