By PETRUS OBI, Enugu

Ex police officers from the South East and South-South states, who served in the de­funct Biafra, have cried out over unpaid retirement ben­efits and entitlements after being granted Presidential amnesty and retired with ef­fect from May 29, 2000.

In a statement, the victims noted that the Police Pensions office, Abuja, misinterpreted and misapplied the letters and spirit of the amnesty by “er­roneously predicating our date of retirement as taking effect from January 15, 1970 con­trary to the Amnesty Provi­sions that May 29, 2000 is the approved date of retirement.”

Consequently, they noted that the Police Pensions office grossly underpaid gratuities to officers they paid gratuities and grossly underpaid month­ly pensions to officers placed on pension.

National chairman of the af­fected police officers, Mathew Udeh, disclosed that more than half of the 1,000 retired police officers were errone­ously disqualified from earn­ing pension, while 50 retired police officers have not been paid since payment started in 2007.

They noted that the Mili­tary Pension Authority cor­rectly interpreted the amnesty and were paying ex-Biafra soldiers full benefits by deem­ing each officer retired on May 29, 2000 as having served for 35 years. They are thus urging President Goodluck Jonathan to intervene so that the let­ters and spirit of the amnesty would be correctly interpreted to recompute and pay retired war affected police officers or next of kin of dead officers ac­cumulated arrears of their full benefits.

The ex-Biafra officers are also requesting for a correct computation and payment of full retirement benefits to vic­tims or their next-of-kin who have not been paid since pay­ment started in 2007.

The ex-police officers ap­pealed to President Jonathan to ensure that justice was done so as to bring the association’s 14 years of agitation for the payment of entitlement to a glorious end.


Source: Sun