Sign police pension bill or lose our votes, retirees protest, warn Tinubu

Some retired Police officers and their families on Monday in Abuja, warned President Bola Tinubu that he risks losing the votes of police retirees scattered across all 36 states if he fails to sign the Police Exit Bill removing the force from the Contributory Pension Scheme.

They gave the warning when gathered in protest, blockading Gate 8 leading to the Presidential Villa in Abuja from about 10:00 am to 1:00pm local time.

Leading the protest, the National Coordinator of the Police Retired Officers Forum of Nigeria, CSP Raphael Irowainu (retd.), said the millions of retirees scattered nationwide will use their votes judiciously.

Irowainu said, “We are calling on President Bola Tinubu to sign our bill as a matter of urgency. He should know that in Nigeria, we are very serious stakeholders. Retirees are scattered all over Nigeria.

We will use our votes judiciously and those of our families to determine our future in the coming elections. From Zamfara, Maiduguri to Cross River, we are in thousands among the populace.”

“When in service, they kill us. We who survived and managed to retire, they programme us to die again. Many of us retire with disabilities and sickness. Many of us here have bullets in our bodies in the course of our duty.

“Unless the President fixes the problems of the police, internal security problems will not stop. We are the force closest to the people.”

He said the protesters will continue in the coming days.

“We will remain in Abuja until that bill is signed. We will protest at the airport, US embassy, we will cry out until this bill is signed,” said Irowainu.

Protesters on Monday carried placards reading “End CPS” and “If military, DSS were removed from PENCOM, why not police?” while chanting “Police dey work, PenCom dey chop.”

According to a Villa security personnel who spoke to our correspondent at the scene of the protest, the retirees were asked to remain under a tree and air their grievances even as the gates were shut based on “orders from above”.

The protesters, operating under the aegis of Police Retired Officers Forum, described the CPS as “fraudulent, illegal, inhumane and obnoxious,” and called for immediate presidential assent to the Police Exit Bill.

The bill was passed by the National Assembly on December 4, 2025, and transmitted to the Presidency on March 16, 2026.

It has since awaited the President’s signature.

The bill, sponsored by House Leader Hon. Julius Ihonvbere, seeks to establish a Nigerian Police Force Pension Board and exempt the police from the Contributory Pension Scheme under the Pension Reform Act 2014.

Irowainu lamented that all other major security agencies had already been removed from the scheme.

He said, “The soldiers have been exited, the SSS has been exited, the Air Force has been exited, the Navy has been exited, the National Intelligence Agency has been exited.

The police, who are the fathers of them all, are trapped in this obnoxious Contributory Pension Scheme.”

The National Coordinating Secretary for Retired Police Officers Under the CPS, CSP Mannir Zaria (retd.), told our correspondent that the women and families who turned out for the protest came to amplify a welfare crisis that had gone ignored for too long.

“We are here to appeal to the President to sign the bill to exit the police from the contributory pension scheme and to establish a Nigerian Police Force pension body. That is why we are here,” he said.

Wife of a retired officer, Aisha Yisa, who spoke to journalists, said the protest was deeply personal.

We are begging our President. We are appealing to you, please have mercy on us. Have mercy on our children. Have mercy on our wives. Have mercy on our husbands. He retired after 35 years and there is nothing to go home with.

“You can imagine someone retires and is taking N30,000 a month in today’s Nigerian economy. What can N30,000 buy? Medication? Nothing.

“You go to the market, you can’t buy anything. Our children have been dropping out of school. Please, we are appealing to you.”

The PUNCH obtained a copy of a letter of protest presented to the Villa, signed by Irowainu and National Secretary Dr Nnaemezie Ignatius Enyi (retd.).

The letter laid out in detail the pension payouts that retirees currently receive.

A Chief Superintendent of Police, it stated, collects a lump sum of N3m to N4m and a monthly pension of N50,000 after decades of service.

It said an Assistant Superintendent receives a lump sum of N1.5m to N2m and a monthly pension of N25,000.

An Inspector takes home a lump sum of N1m to N1m and N20,000 monthly.

The group described these figures as “inhumanity of man to man,” and accused the management of the National Pension Commission of deliberately spreading what it called false economic arguments to prevent the bill’s passage and protect financial interests tied to the scheme.

The group warned in the letter that if the President declined to sign the bill, they were “ready and fully prepared for an indefinite National Peaceful Protest tagged ‘No Retreat, No Surrender’” at the Presidential Villa, other designated venues in Abuja and throughout all 36 state capitals.

Monday’s protest is not the first escalation over the issue. In September 2025, retired officers besieged the National Assembly in Abuja, describing the CPS as a fraudulent arrangement designed to keep them in poverty.

Senate President Godswill Akpabio had at one point assured the retirees that the policy was “not well thought out” and had placed undue hardship on police personnel who risked their lives to secure the country.

The letter was copied to Vice President Kashim Shettima, First Lady Senator Oluremi Tinubu, Senate President Godswill Akpabio, Speaker Tajudeen Abbas, Minister of Defence Gen. Christopher Musa (retd.), Minister of Police Affairs Sen. Ibrahim Gaidam, FCT Minister Nyesome Wike, National Security Adviser Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, Inspector-General of Police Olatunji Disu, and DSS Director-General Adeola Ajayi.