Election sabotage: Police to begin strike March 28

The rescheduled Presidential election might witness another serious hiccup as policemen who are being owed promotion arrears have said they would embark on strike on March 28 to press home their demand and convince the police authorities that they were serious about their threat to down-tool.

Nigeria’s Presidential election is scheduled to hold on March 28 and the policemen are expected to play crucial role of providing security during and after the elections.

The police personnel said over 100 colleagues retired in 2014 without being paid their promotion arrears and other benefits, adding that the payment had been pending for over two years.

The men who spoke to our correspondent in Abuja on Monday, expressed fears that their benefits may not be paid as promised by the Inspector-General of Police, Suleiman Abba.

The officers cited the statement credited to the IG that the police could not pay duty tour allowances and other benefits because of the shortfall in allocation to the Force by the Federal Government.

Abba had stated in a document on the 2015 budget Defence presented to the Senate Committee on Police Affairs last week, that the 2014 police budget which suffered a shortfall of N6,464673,537 made it impossible to successfully conclude the payment of personnel emolument in 2014.

The policemen said that those that were being owed numbered about 15,000, adding that from information available to them, nothing was being done by the police authorities to address their grievances.

“The only way we could make the IG pay us our salary arrears and other benefits is to embark on strike on election day when the nation would need us most, otherwise, the issue would be swept under the carpet like others.

“Over 100 policemen have retired without being paid their arrears and some of us would retire this month or next, which means that we may not get the money before leaving service,” the men complained.

The Force Public Relations Officer, Emmanuel Ojukwu, had earlier said the aggrieved policemen would be paid as soon as the Force received money from the Federal Government.