The head of the group for retired police officers who were impacted by the conflict, Mr. Matthew Udeh, has appealed for an upgrade in their pensions, regretting that many of the association’s police members received monthly pensions of as little as N6,000 because they supported Biafra during the civil war.
In an interview in Awka, Udeh recalled that all Biafra police officers had been fired in 1970. He added that it had taken 30 years for the appeal to be approved until former President Olusegun Obasanjo changed their firing into retirement in 2000.
Udeh pleaded with the Executive Secretary of Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate, PTAD, Dr. Chioma Ejikeme to do everything within her power to ensure the harmonization of the pension of war-affected police officers with the prevailing pension arrangement in the country.
When Sit-at-home In South East Will End – Bishop Udeh
He said: “Our case is peculiar because, at the end of the civil war in 1970, we were dismissed from the police because we served in Biafra.
” We had to petition the injustice and thirty years later, our dismissal was converted to retirement through the presidential amnesty granted by the then President Olusegun Obasanjo.
” The retirement took effect from May, 2000 and naturally our pension was supposed to be based on the salary we were earning at the time of retirement. In other words, we expected that our pension would be based on the prevailing pension in 2000, but unfortunately as a punitive measure, our pension was based on what we were earning when we were dismissed 30 years earlier, which was why many of us were earning as low as N6000 pension per month for constables.”
According to Udeh, what members of his association receive as pension is too small to assist people in their ages and urged to the Executive Secretary of PTAD to prevail on the present administration to harmonize the pension of the war affected police officers with others.
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