Death benefits of police personnel

The publication by the Nigeria Police Force detailed arrangements made to pay Death-Service Benefits to recognised Next of Kin of the Force’s officers and men who died in service. All well and good, that is until one looks at the period under consideration. It identifies police personnel who died between 2004 and 2010! The public […]

The publication by the Nigeria Police Force detailed arrangements made to pay Death-Service Benefits to recognised Next of Kin of the Force’s officers and men who died in service. All well and good, that is until one looks at the period under consideration. It identifies police personnel who died between 2004 and 2010! The public is being informed that the families of these policemen and women have not received the entitlement due to them for a decade. Given the relatively low ranks of the deceased personnel – DSP down to PC – the impoverishment of their families can only be imagined. In all like likelihood they have long been ejected from barracks and official quarters even as they are being owed.
This revelation should worry Nigerians and cause us to question the procedures in place to handle the payment of benefits to families of deceased personnel of government agencies.  It’s not in doubt there are procedures for this; it’s also not in doubt they are being observed in the breach. Police authorities will undoubtedly claim that most of NOKs have been paid off; the right thing is for all to be paid without unconscionable delay. One would have thought that compassion for the loved ones of fallen colleagues would act as a spur to overcome bureaucratic hurdles in prising funds from government to settle these benefits,  such motivation is not discernible in the instant case.
The purpose of this piece is not to castigate the Nigeria Police Force but to draw attention to a serious failing which infects other agencies as well as the private sector.  Even the newly – introduced pension system with private sector managers exhibits the lethargy and red tape (deliberate? ) that is being decried here.
Nigerians must strive to live the ideal of being indeed our brother’s keepers by showing compassion and empathy in situations like this. The Nigeria Police Force must overcome all obstacles and begin paying death benefits in the shortest possible defined time frame.

M T Usman, Kaduna <[email protected]>;