Retired police officers and their families, under the aegis of the Police Retired Officers Forum of Nigeria (PROF), on Monday staged a protest at the Presidential Villa in Abuja, blocking one of its gates to press home their demands.
The protesters are calling for the removal of the Nigeria Police Force from the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS), which they described as fraudulent, illegal, inhumane, and obnoxious.
They urged President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to assent to the Police Exit Bill passed by the National Assembly on December 4, 2025, and transmitted to the Presidency on March 16, 2026.
According to the retirees, the proposed law, if signed, would exempt police personnel from what they termed a “slavery and untimely death-inducing pension scheme.”
The protest was led by the National Coordinator of PROF, CSP Raphael Irowainu (retd), who said the demonstration was aimed solely at persuading the President to sign the bill into law.
“Our major aim here is to prevail on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to sign our bill—the bill exiting the police from the Contributory Pension Scheme—passed by the National Assembly on December 4, 2025, and transmitted to him on March 16, 2026—into law,” he said.
Irowainu lamented that while other security agencies, including the Army, Navy, Air Force, Department of State Services, and the National Intelligence Agency, have been exempted from the scheme, the police remain included.
“The police, who are the fathers of them all, are trapped in this obnoxious Contributory Pension Scheme,” he added.
The protest marks another in a series of demonstrations by retired police officers over the CPS. In July 2025, they protested at the National Assembly and also at the Force Headquarters in Abuja, demanding their removal from the scheme.
At the time, the then Inspector General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, acknowledged concerns over retirees’ welfare but stated that exiting the police from the scheme could not be implemented immediately, while urging protest leaders to avoid spreading misinformation.
