The Nigerian Inspector General of Police, Usman Baba has reportedly directed the immediate payment of the six months arrears of the new salary structure approved by President Muhammadu Buhari for the Force since 2021.
The Forward News Correspondences had exclusively reported that there was disquiet among policemen over how the leadership of the Force refused to pay up the six months arrears of the new salary scheme after the federal government had released the funds.
Some policemen had told The Forward News Media that the newly approved salary structure, which implementation was supposed to have commenced in January 2022, started in July with only one-month arrears of payment.
However, after the report, the Inspector General of Police directed that the arrears should be paid immediately, although it is not clear whether the payment will cover the entire six months, a police source has disclosed.
They had said such action of the police hierarchy was part of the reasons while there was low morale in crime fighting and a lot of police extortion being reported every day because those policemen have families to feed and they need money to feed them. If the authorities refuse to pay them, they use other available means to solve their problems including extortion from motorists and criminal suspects’ families.
Such impunity from the police leadership also encouraged waywardness and lawlessness from the personnel,” one of the police sources had said.
But an inside police source told The Forward News Media that immediately after the report came out, IGP Usman was jittery and on Sunday, approved the immediate payment of the arrears across the commands.
The payment, according to the source, is supposed to start on Monday (today).
We thank God that yesterday IG gave orders to MSS to pay the allowance but I can’t lie, I don’t know whether he gave the order to pay all the arrears.
“We just thank God and we should thank the Federal Government, if not, the plan of the police authorities was to ‘eat’ (embezzle) the money. Already they have started sharing the money among the DIGs and the top police hierarchy.
Although some DIGs refused to collect the money and I also believe that was what the IG feared and he gave the order to the MSS to pay the money. But we don’t know the month, whether it is for one month, two months, three months or the entire six months; nobody is aware but he ordered that all the commands should pay the money to the entire police force.
Secondly, the issue of this our money; the fault is from above which is the IG. About two DIGs refused to collect the money, but regrettably even one DIG name undisclosed, collected it. I am aware of that.
When my Correspondences came for interview, they noticed that something is wrong but God is with us because the Federal Government is not happy with the Inspector General of Police anymore. That is what is going on over here. My Correspondences told me that the moment the arrears are paid, the salary will now follow,” the source said.
