IGP Reveals If Police Will Exit Contributory Pension Scheme

IGP Reveals If Police Will Exit Contributory Pension Scheme

Despite the ongoing agitation from both serving and retired officers of the Nigeria Police Force to exit the current Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS), Inspector General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, has rejected the move, stating that it is not in the best interest of the force.

There has been a bill aiming to set up the Police Pension Board to manage pensions for the force, allowing the police to exit the contributory scheme.

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The bill, which passed in the last National Assembly, has caused concern due to the potential additional N2 trillion in pension liabilities for the federal government. The bill proposes a return to the old Defined Benefit Scheme (DBS) for the police, overseen by the pension board, similar to the system in place for the military.

The bill was initially presented in June 2022 by Senator Elisha Abbo, excluding the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) from the CPS. Abbo argued that the police, as a premier law enforcement and security agency, should not be under the Pension Commission like the Army, Navy, Air Force, and other security agencies. Despite passing in the Senate, former President Muhammadu Buhari declined to give assent to the bill.

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While addressing officers at the Kwara State command in Ilorin, Inspector General Egbetokun expressed that the officers advocating to exit the contributory pension scheme were being misled and had not thoroughly read the bill.

He said: “The officers who raised the issue of pension said that we should exit the present contributory pension scheme. Yes, it is true that a bill has been passed by the National Assembly to exit the current pension scheme and awaiting presidential assent but have any of you seen the content of the bill? Have you seen the details of that bill?

“Everybody is shouting let us pull out! let us go! Where are you going? You must know where you’re going before you start shouting. When I became IG, I set up a committee to look at the pension issues and I discovered that the bill does not favour us. If we leave the Contributory Pension Scheme, we are going back to square one and our pensions will be in the hands of politicians.

“It also means that our pension will be subject to budgetary allocations every year when the government does not have money, you will not be paid,” the police chief said.

Inspector General Egbetokun reminded officers that leaving the contributory pension scheme would bring them back to the days of waiting for months without receiving their pensions. He assured them that he has discussed with President Tinubu on ways to improve the current contributory scheme for officers, and he is actively working on a pension scheme allowing officers to retire with their salaries paid as pension.

Oguche Agudah, the Chief Executive Officer of the Pension Fund Operators Association of Nigeria (PenOp), mentioned that the IGP’s position aligns with the association’s stance since the beginning of the exit agitations.

“The position of the IG is what we have stated all along. Our overall aim is to ensure that Nigerian workers get their pension payments as and when due.

“Those on the defined benefit schemes in the states and even the military are not having it rosy. What you see from those schemes is that retirees have to wait for months, perhaps even years for them to have their pension paid because of budgetary constraints.

“Under the contributory pension scheme, your pension payment is not tied to anyone, but to what you have in your retirement savings account. This promotes dignity and flexibility and enables you to plan ahead,” he explained.

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