POLICE officers who retired from service between May last year and this year have called on the federal government to intervene in the alleged mishandling of their pension by the Pension Commission of Nigeria (PENCOM).
The retired police officers said that while none of them including those who had retired since last year were yet to be paid any money from their contributory pension scheme, the PENCOM had decided to reduce by half the lump sum it ought to pay them.
Speaking with journalists in Ilorin at the weekend, the people wondered why the pension commission would decide to pay, 25- 30 per cent of their pension as a lump sum when it was, as they claimed, paying 53 per cent to their predecessors.
The retirees, who said that many of them had died of starvation, fallen sick or incurred a lot of debt while still waiting to be paid, added that about N1.5million, which the PENCOM wanted to pay them a lump sum would be too meagre to meet their needs.
ASP Samuel Anzo (Rtd), who spoke on behalf of the people, said that the PENCOM did not consult them or get any consent from them to the reduce their pension before it carried out the arrangement.
The spokesman described the new arrangement as bad as he alleged that PENCOM deliberately did it to achieve a selfish purpose at the expense of the retirees.
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Anzo, who said that they would not collect the money except it is at least 50 per cent of their pension entitlement, called on the federal government, Labour union and other relevant organizations to prevail on the PENCOM to rescind its decision.
“We use this medium to draw the attention of President Muhammad Buhari, the Senate and the House of Representatives, Nigeria Labour Congress and all relevant Human Right offices and activist to urgently come to our aid on this issue as PENCOM has finally ordered to pay us peanuts money that could not pay our outstanding debts and pain we have suffered for.
“We, the retirees under the contributory pension commission of Nigeria and all the 21 Pension Fund Administration (PFA) hereby want the Federal Government and all other powerful authorities mentioned above to prevail on the PENCOM not to implement such unjust recent order as it will cause more serious injuries to our lives,” he stated.
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