By Abbas Bamalli
Kano – The Association of Retired Police officers of Nigeria (ARPON), Kano Chapter, is seeking immediate exclusion of its members from the Contributory Pension Scheme.
Saidu Garba, the Secretary of the association, which membership covers Kano, Katsina, and Jigawa states, made this known at a news conference on Monday.
According to Garba, it is the desire of the retirees for the Federal Government to revert to the previous Police Pension Scheme.
“We, the retired officers from Kano, Katsina, and Jigawa states, are using this medium to express our willingness and desire as police pensioners under this scheme, to be excluded from the Contributory Pension Scheme,“ he said.
Garba said that the call for the exclusion of the police retirees form the scheme became necessary because it had become detrimental to the interests of members of the association.
He added that most of the retired senior police officers received pension far below what they were supposed to be getting.
He stated that senior officers receive N18,000 monthly as pension benefits under the contributory scheme.
“We want to return to our normal police pension scheme like the military.
“We police pensioners know where the shoe is pinching us. The (contributory pension) scheme is seriously dealing with us.
“The much-anticipated benefit of the contributory pension scheme we are operating now has turned out to be a mirage,“ he said.
He praised members of the House of Representatives for amending the Pension Reform Act 2014 to exclude the Nigeria Police Force from the (contributory pension) scheme.
“We are appealing to them to also speed up the passage of the Bill so that we can begin to enjoy the real benefits that we were denied by the operators of the private pension organisations,“ he said.
He urged the Federal Government to, as a matter of urgency, revert to the previous police pension scheme to guard against their untimely death.