By: Vitalis Ugoh, Calabar
The Nigeria Police Retirees Under Contributory pension scheme has described as baseless and unfounded “warning” issued by Oguche Aguda, CEO PenOp published in (Daily Trust, January 15, 2026) that the Federal Government (FG) may require an additional ₦7 trillion annually to cushion the exit of the Police from the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS).
A statement issued and signed by the the National Coordinator, SP Christopher Effiong (Rtd) as well as other stakeholders described it ” as nothing but a recurring pernicious propaganda which reflects a troubling prioritisation of fiscal arithmetic over justice, equity and national security”.
The statement therefore challenged “PenOp and its CEO, Oguche Aguda in no friendly terms, to substantiate this porous assertion, or baseless and unfounded “warning” as the case may be with convincing statistics of macroeconomics indices of fiscal and monetary policies which constitute the driving force of a country’s economy and not by subjecting the retirement benefits of retired police officers under the CPS to form the pillars of the Nigerian economy”.
According to the statement, “Fiscal and monetary policies are the known instruments used by the Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to shape the economy of Nigeria. Therefore, it is not logically known at what point in time that PenCom, PenOp, PFAs and Annuity companies formally assumed the functions of the Ministry of Finance and the CBN. PenOp, PFAs and Annuity Companies are the proxies and beneficiaries of PenCom reaping from where they did not sew”.
It further said that “the CPS is incompatible with the realities of policing in Nigeria. The police face daily exposure to death, injury and psychological trauma. To cage the police alone in such an obnoxious and toxic scheme is a grave policy inconsistency. Fiscal sustainability must not be pursued at the expense of the welfare, morale and operational effectiveness of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF), the first respondent and backbone of internal security in Nigeria. The selective application of compulsorily retaining the police in the CPS is discriminatory and indefensible.”
The statement added that “the ₦7 trillion argument is a false framing, and presenting the issue purely as a ₦7 trillion fiscal burden is misleading for several reasons:Security is not an expense, it is an investment. No economy can thrive without internal stability, the cost of insecurity—banditry, kidnapping, terrorism, vandalism, and loss of investor confidence—already far exceeds any pension liability, Poor police welfare fuels corruption, low morale and inefficiency, which in turn impose hidden but massive economic cost on the nation and If Nigeria can fund military pensions, the pensions of the intelligence community, the National Assembly (NASS) workers outside the CPS, and some states that opted out of it through the now homogenous budgetary allocations to them, it can and must do the same for the police.”
“On the contrary, all officers, both retired and serving, want to exit the obnoxious, toxic and killer CPS. The NPF is a single indivisible security agency and cannot afford to have multiple, discriminatory and segregatory pension systems within one organisation. Inclusion of the NPF in the CPS was by retrospective and harmful conscription that grossly violated every democratic process of enacting an Act meant for the wellbeing of workers. So, the serial agitations by retired police officers under the CPS reflect a universal position within the Force.”
According to the statement, “globally, retired police officers are not tied to the whims and caprices of neo-colonial strangulating exploitation of their retirement benefits as practised in Nigeria by PenOp and cohorts. Not even in Chile where the system was blindly copied from. The National Police of Chile is excluded from the CPS”.
“Given the ample opportunities and privileges of having stints in foreign missions in some countries in Africa and Europe by many retired and serving police officers whose ideas are exchanged on service issues, PenOp and Oguche Aguda as its CEO, grossly fall short of intellectual and policing capacities to discuss pension and gratuity issuesrelated to countries outside Nigeria. Oguche Aguda is known for bloated lies.
It said that “the presentation made by Oguche Aguda at a PenOp seminar in Lagos on 02/01/2024 while celebrating the dawn of 20 years of pension “exploitative” reform exposed the dubious, reckless and fraudulent investments made with retirees’ pension funds. According to Oguche Aguda, PenOp invested a total of ₦308.58 billion in MTN Nigeria series 1 and Dangote Industries series 1 as at the second quarter of 2023 which formed part of corporate debt securities of the pension fund asset portfolio”.
“The list of several other billions of nairafraudulently invested in other securities exist but the returns on investment never trickled down to the owners of the funds.Therefore, the issue of agitations by retired police officers under the CPS is not that of “pension reform” but TOTAL EXIT from the CPS and ESTABLISHMENT of POLICE PENSION BOARD (PPB) to manage the gratuity and pensions of retired police officers”.
The statement further warned that “the NPF should not be the sacrificial lamb of pension reform. As the first respondent security agency and the most visible symbol of state authority, the police deserve parity, dignity, and assurance in retirement. Retaining the police alone in an “obnoxious” and “toxic” Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) while exempting others is not fiscal prudence; it is policy hypocrisy”.
“Nigeria must choose between short-term budget convenience and long-term national security. History will judge that choice, it added”.
The statement was signed by the National Coordinator, SP Christopher Effiong (Rtd),A Critical Stakeholder, ACP BRIGHT KAKADA, rtd. JP, National Legal AdviserDSP Elder Ofem O. Mbang, Esq (rtd) and General Secretary, ASP El-Nathan Jareh and21 others.
