~~~ Urges assent to the Police Exit Bill
By Kamsi Anayo
Retired police personnel and their families, under the aegis of the Police Retired Officers Forum of Nigeria (PROF), on Monday blocked a gate of the Presidential Villa in Abuja in protest.
The protest is against the continued inclusion of the Nigeria Police Force in the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) which they described as fraudulent, illegal, inhumane, and obnoxious.
The retirees said the protest is aimed at urging President Bola Tinubu to assent to the Police Exit Bill passed by the National Assembly on Dec. 4, 2025, and transmitted to the Presidency on March 16, 2026.
According to them, when signed into law, the bill will exempt police personnel from what they described as a “slavery and untimely death-inducing pension scheme.”
The protest was led by the National Coordinator of the Police Retired Officers Forum of Nigeria, CSP Raphael Irowainu (Rtd).
Irowainu said that their main purpose was to prevail on Tinubu to sign the bill exiting the Nigeria Police Force from the CPS, which he said has been passed and transmitted to him by the National Assembly.
He lamented that while other security agencies in the country such as the Army, Navy, Air Force, SSS and others have all been exited from the scheme, the police remain trapped in it.
“Our major aim here is to prevail on President Bola Tinubu to sign our bill — the bill exiting the police from the Contributory Pension Scheme —passed by the National Assembly on Dec. 4, 2025 and transmitted to him on 16th March, 2026, into law, nothing more than that.
“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 (NIA) has been exited. The police, who are the father of them all, are trapped in this obnoxious Contributory Pension Scheme,” CSP Irowainu said.
This is not the first time retired officers are staging a protest over the CPS. In July last year, they demonstrated at the National Assembly to demand their removal from the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS).
The demonstrators, stood in the rain holding placards and chanting anti-government songs.
Some of the retired police officers also besieged the Force Headquarters in Abuja to protest against the CPS.
Addressing the protesters at the time, the then Inspector General of Police, IGP Kayode Egbetokun, said the welfare of retired police officers was being addressed, but that the exit of the Force from the Contributory Pension Scheme was not something that could be implemented immediately.
He, however, advised the leaders of the protest to refrain from spreading misinformation, stressing that the Force could not abandon its own.
