There is apprehension among the 287 anti-riot policemen attached to the Presidential Villa following threats by their superiors to redeploy them to the North-East if they continued to demand payment of their allowance arrears.

It was learnt that policemen attached to Police Mobile Force 24, State House, were allegedly excluded from the payment of 22 months’ arrears of Risk Cautious Allowance, which were paid to security personnel serving in the Presidential Villa.

It was learnt that military personnel, operatives of Department of State Services and Federal Road Safety Corps and others serving in the Presidential villa, were paid the 22 months arrears of the RCA while the policemen were excluded for unknown reasons.

Sources informed our correspondent that while other security operatives were each paid N540,000 outstanding allowances last year, a total of 287 policemen serving in the Presidency were not paid.

The aggrieved policemen said they were instead paid N75,000, noting that they were being discriminated against by National Security Adviser.

They pointed out that the balance of their allowances might have been embezzled.

They identified a Deputy Commissioner of Police in the Presidency as the one who allegedly included names of his boys in the payment list, thereby inflating the number of those paid by the NSA.

An officer that was affected, but who spoke on condition of anonymity, said, “The military officers, DSS personnel and even FRSC men were paid their N540,000 but we (policemen) were paid N75,000 for the same period, and now the superior officers are threatening to demobilise and redeploy us to the North-East to fight Boko Haram if we insist on being paid the balance of the arrears.

“The fact is that the names of some men, who are not MOPOL personnel, were included in the list and are receiving the RCA.”

It was learnt that Chief Personal Security Officer to the President, Abdulkarim Dauda, who was deployed to the State House last December was being paid the RCA.

Dauda, a Deputy Commissioner of Police, was also reportedly informed about the non-payment of allowances to the policemen, but he allegedly did nothing about it.

Our correspondent learnt that the aggrieved policemen had also complained to the officer in charge of the MOPOL in the State House, Abdulahi Ibrahim, and other high ranking officials in the Presidency, but nothing was done to address the issue.

The PUNCH had earlier reported that President Muhammadu Buhari had directed that the arrears of RCA be paid to all deserving security personnel in the Presidential Villa, but no explanation was given for the exclusion of the riot policemen.


Punch