A Bill for the establishment of a Police Pension Board on Thursday passed second reading at the Senate.
The bill titled ‘Police Pension Board (Establishment) Bill is sponsor by Senator Binos Dauda Yaroe.
Senator Yaroe in his lead debate said men and officers of the Nigeria Police Force are disadvantaged by being lumped with other public agencies under the contributory pension scheme managed by the Pension Commission, PenCom, unlike other frontline security agencies like the army, navy, air force, Department of State Services, DSS, Defense Intelligence Agency, DIA, and the National Intelligence Agency, NIA.
According to him, a cursory look at the difference between the pension and gratuity benefits of the Nigeria Police and the military shows that the benefits of a Deputy Superintendent of Police, DSP, under the current pension scheme is N2.5million while the equivalent of DSP in the army (Captain), navy (Lieutenant), air force (Flight Lieutenant) and DSS (Captain) are paid N12.8 million.
This, according to him, means that the Nigerian Police Force is receiving an equivalent of 19.5 percent pension benefit of their colleagues in sister agencies.
“The broad objective of this bill is to bring equality, equity and justice in the payment of pensions between the police and sister agencies, while boosting the morale of serving personnel and also enhance the standard of living of retired personnel of the Nigerian Police Force.
“The inclusion and continuous stay of the police in PENCOM has placed them on the wrong end of post-service emolument despite being saddled with the responsibility of not only protecting the lives and property of the citizenry, but also detecting, preventing and investigating crimes, as well as prosecuting offences,” he said.
Virtually all the senators who contributed to debate on the bill supported it and urged the Senate to fast track its consideration and passage.
In his remarks after the bill scaled second reading through voice vote, the Deputy President of the Senate, Senator Jibrin Barau, who presided over the session, said the intended legislation is necessary to boost the morale of men and officers of the police while in service ahead of their retirement.
“The bill is very important. The police is our number one law enforcement entity and so, we need to do all that is required to take care of them in respect of their pension.
“They lay down their lives while we are asleep; they are awake to protect us and our properties, so we need to do our best in terms of their pension.
“It is quite good, as suggested, that their pension should be in line with what is applicable in sister agencies. What is good for the goose should also be good for the gander”, he said .
He thereafter mandated the Senate Committee on Police Affairs to make more legislative inputs into it and report back in four weeks.
