Their protest is against the continued inclusion of the Nigeria Police Force in the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS), which they described as fraudulent, illegal, inhumane, and obnoxious.
Retire police officers protesting in Abuja over pension scheme
Some retirees of the Nigeria Police Force under the aegis of the Police Retired Officers Forum of Nigeria (PROF) have staged a protest at the Presidential Villa in Abuja to demand that President Bola Tinubu sign the Police Exit Bill passed by the National Assembly in December 2025.
The bill seeks to withdraw the Nigeria Police Force from the Contributory Pension Scheme.
The protesters, under the scorching sun, walked from the Three Arms Zone in Abuja through the street in front of the Police Headquarters.
They carried placards with various inscriptions, in addition to the Nigerian flag and the flag of the Nigeria Police Force.
Led by its National Coordinator, CSP Raphael Irowainu, the protesters described the retention of the NPF in the Contributory Pension Scheme as fraudulent and illegal.
They also said the CPS is inhumane and obnoxious.
According to them, the protest seeks to prevail on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to give assent to the Police Exit Bill passed by the National Assembly on 4th December 2025 and transmitted to the President on 16th March 2026.
They said that when signed into law, the Act will totally exempt the police from what they called a “slavery and untimely death-inducing pension scheme.”
The protesters, accompanied by some of their spouses and children, also blocked Gate 8 leading into the Presidential Villa, causing obstruction to vehicular movement.
Efforts by Villa security personnel to dissuade them from the protest proved abortive as they insisted on seeing the President.
They laid their mats in front of the gate, singing songs of solidarity, while some of them lay on the floor.
As of the time of filing this report, no one from the Villa had addressed the protesters.
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Speaking to reporters, CSP Irowainu said that their main purpose is to prevail on President Tinubu to sign the bill exiting the Nigeria Police Force from the CPS, which he said has been passed and transmitted to him by the National Assembly.
He lamented that while other security agencies in the country such as the Army, Navy, Air Force, SSS and others have all been exited from the scheme, the police remain trapped in it.
“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 4th December 2025 and transmitted to him on 16th March, 2026, into law, nothing more than that.
“The soldiers have been exited, the SSS has been exited, the Air Force has been exited, the Navy has been exited, the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) has been exited. The police, who are the father of them all, are trapped in this obnoxious Contributory Pension Scheme,” CSP Irowainu said.
Retired CSP Irowainu
It is not the first time retired officers are staging a protest over the CPS. In July last year, they demonstrated at the National Assembly to demand their removal from the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS).
The demonstrators, mostly elderly, stood in the rain holding placards and chanting anti-government songs.
Some of the retired police officers also besieged the Force Headquarters in Abuja to protest against the CPS.
Addressing the protesters at the time, the then Inspector General of Police, IGP Kayode Egbetokun, said the welfare of retired police officers was being addressed, but that the exit of the Force from the Contributory Pension Scheme was not something that could be implemented immediately.
He, however, advised the leaders of the protest to refrain from spreading misinformation, stressing that the Force could not abandon its own.
