{"id":71115,"date":"2025-07-21T12:34:39","date_gmt":"2025-07-21T12:34:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=71115"},"modified":"2025-07-21T12:34:39","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T12:34:39","slug":"police-pensions-boil-over-sowore-retirees-storm-abuja","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2025\/07\/21\/police-pensions-boil-over-sowore-retirees-storm-abuja\/","title":{"rendered":"Police Pensions Boil Over: Sowore, Retirees Storm Abuja"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-start=\"127\" data-end=\"207\"><strong>By Samuel Adeola<\/strong><\/p>\n<p data-start=\"209\" data-end=\"428\">Presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC) in the 2023 elections, Omoyele Sowore, alongside other activists, is leading a protest in Abuja today to demand improved welfare for serving police officers.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"430\" data-end=\"661\">Simultaneously, the Nigerian Union of Retired Police Officers is picketing the National Assembly and Force Headquarters to demand immediate exit from the \u201cdiscriminatory contributory pension scheme\u201d and a refund of their savings.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"663\" data-end=\"947\">The union\u2019s chairman, Mannir M. Lawal, confirmed that members from all 36 states have converged on Abuja for what he called \u201cthe mother of all peaceful protests.\u201d He emphasized, \u201cNothing is going to stop the protest. We just want to be removed from the Contributory Pension Scheme.\u201d<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"949\" data-end=\"1177\">Lawal denied allegations that Sowore\u2019s involvement was part of a political agenda to discredit IGP Kayode Egbetokun, clarifying, \u201cWe only saw Sowore\u2019s own on social media. We are not aware of his planned protest before today.\u201d<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1179\" data-end=\"1466\">Reacting, police spokesperson Olumuyiwa Adejobi accused unnamed individuals of politicizing the agitation and \u201cweaponizing the legitimate grievances of our retired colleagues.\u201d Despite this, the Inspector-General of Police has directed commissioners to ensure the safety of protesters.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1468\" data-end=\"1629\">However, a leaked memo revealed that some officers in the FCT were ordered to remain in barracks until further notice, raising concerns about internal tension.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1631\" data-end=\"1863\">Sowore fired back at the Tinubu-led government on Facebook, accusing it of failing to provide police officers with decent salaries or pensions. \u201cYou humiliated them in service and in retirement&#8230; now you\u2019re scrambling,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1865\" data-end=\"2043\" data-is-last-node=\"\" data-is-only-node=\"\">Meanwhile, the Police Community Relations Committee (PCRC) has appealed to the retirees to return to negotiations, suggesting the protest seeks to undermine the IGP\u2019s reputation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Samuel Adeola Presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC) in the 2023 elections, Omoyele Sowore, alongside other activists, is leading a protest in Abuja today to demand improved welfare for serving police officers. Simultaneously, the Nigerian Union of Retired Police Officers is picketing the National Assembly and Force Headquarters to demand immediate exit [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":71120,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71115"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71115\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71123,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71115\/revisions\/71123"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}