Retired officers of the Nigeria Police Force, alongside their family members, staged a protest on Monday at one of the entrances to the Presidential Villa in Abuja, disrupting traffic as they demanded the Force’s removal from the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS).
Operating under the Police Retired Officers Forum of Nigeria, the demonstrators condemned the CPS as “fraudulent, illegal, inhumane, and obnoxious”, arguing that the scheme has failed to guarantee financial security and post-service dignity for former personnel.
Protesters displayed placards bearing inscriptions such as “End CPS” and “If military, DSS were removed from PENCOM, why not police?”, while chanting “Police dey work, PenCom dey chop”, underscoring their dissatisfaction with the administration of pension funds.
From an HR and workforce welfare perspective, the retirees’ demands centre on equitable retirement benefits, fair compensation structures, and the long-term wellbeing of security personnel. They called on President Bola Tinubu to assent to the Police Exit Bill, which was passed by the National Assembly on 4 December 2025 and transmitted to the Presidency on 16 March 2026.
According to the group, the proposed legislation would exempt police personnel from the CPS, which they described as a “slavery and untimely death-inducing pension scheme”, and restore a more sustainable pension framework tailored to the unique demands of policing.
In a video of the protest shared by Channels Television, retired ASP Nurudeen Dahiru articulated the group’s grievances: “We are not begging anybody. We have come to fight for our rights. We have suffered. We are not here to fight anybody; we are just here to demand for our rights. We have served for 35 years.
“According to the Constitution of the country, when you serve your country for 35 years, you should go home and rest. But see us suffering now. We are not able to take care of our children. We have no food to eat. We are dying — a silent killing. So this contributory pension scheme is a killer disease. Thirty-five years is not easy. We are not here to fight anybody.”
Another retired officer criticised the adequacy of post-retirement income, highlighting the gap between years of service and monthly pension payments: “We don’t have anything to train them. As I retired 20 years ago, how much are they paying me? It is 24,000 that I am being paid because I retired as an inspector. So they have to sign our bill and give us all our money.
“So that somebody can use it for something — you can buy a house. And then now we don’t have a house. How can an ASP, a DSP, or a CP retire and they are paying him how much? No, no, no. Enough is enough. It is a do-or-die situation. Even if some people are killed today, others are coming.”
The protest highlights persistent tensions within Nigeria’s public-sector pension framework, particularly regarding parity, adequacy of retirement benefits, and the broader implications for employee morale, retention, and institutional trust within the security services.
