Police officers under the auspices of Concerned Police Inspectors in Nigeria on Thursday visited the Correspondent Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, along Asutan Street, Uyo the Akwa Ibom State capital to protest non-payment of 11 months salary arrears.
The officers drawn from different Police formations, who spoke on behalf of their colleagues on condition of anonymity, lamented that their crime-fighting morale had been dampened by the non-commitment to their welfare by the police authorities.
The officers who noted that they were about 1,500 officers promoted from inspector 11-to-1 appealed to the IGP, Kayode Egbetokun, to use his offices to effect the payment for the affected officers, to be able to address the harsh socio-economic realities on their families.
An appeal letter addressed to Egbetokun, and copied to the presidency, national assembly and the Police Service Commission, said, “We are over 1,500 personnel of the Nigeria Police Force, Akwa Ibom Command, promoted from Inspector 11, to Inspector 1, by the IGP effective from September 10, 2023, with a signal dated March 21, 2024.
To date, we are still collecting old salaries as junior Inspectors instead of senior Inspectors since the IGP gave us the confirmation letters. So we have nowhere to run to than to the federal government who is our employee.
We are uncomfortable with this inhuman treatment by our IGP, after putting many years into serving our country but our entitlements are being denied.
They lamented the high cost of living adding that it had begun to affect how they tended to their families.
They said, “We can no longer feed our families or pay their bills due to the high cost of essential items in the market. It’s difficult to believe that after being celebrated with our families for being elevated to another level, the IGP has been deliberately short-paying us for 11 months now, and by calculation, the shortfall is over N550,000 each.
“When we contacted our pay officers, their reason is always that the IPPS has been returning our voucher because no directive from the IGP. So we ask; between our IGP and the Police authority, who should take matters of our welfare more seriously?
Since he assumed office as IGP, Mr. Egbetokun, had been promoting officers without commensurate payment of their financial accompaniments. The only signal we have been receiving from him, from Abuja, is dressing code, dressing code and dressing code, what are we going to use to buy the uniforms if our due salaries have not been paid?”
(PUNCH)