- Payment of pension to ex-Biafran police officers though belated, is good
About 400 ex-Biafran police officers from the old Eastern Region (now South-East and South-South), had reasons to jubilate recently when they were paid their pension in Enugu. The payment to police officers in the Nigeria Police Force who were first dismissed by the Federal Government for working for Biafra during the civil war, and were later granted amnesty by President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2000, marked a significant milestone in the country’s post-war reconstruction/re-integration.
The payment gave teeth to the slogan: “No Victor, No Vanquished” popularised by General Yakubu Gowon at the end of a war that claimed over one million lives.
It is commendable that the Buhari administration had brought this sad aspect of the war to an end by approving payment of pension to ex-police officers who had been waiting for benefits of presidential pardon and amnesty since 2000. While serving as a direly needed erasure of sad memories of the war for the police officers, the extension of pension to retired police officers also signals a positive attitude to leaders of several Igbo organisations who had complained on-and-off about marginalisation since the end of the civil war that there is more to gain from peace than violent conflicts.
But the lessons of former public servants waiting 47 years to get their benefits after a war in which the Biafran leader himself had even contested to become post-war Nigeria’s president in 2003 must not be overlooked.
The delay in fully integrating public servants who had served Nigeria faithfully before moving to Biafra should have been avoided, especially since the return to democracy in 1999. In view of the rehabilitation of many of the leaders of the Biafran side of the conflict within the first decade after the war, the recent ceremony in Enugu, though a positive development, underscores that it is usually innocent people at the lower end of the social spectrum that suffer most in the event of serious national crisis. Citizens beating war drums need to learn from the sad experience of the former police officers who had to wait so long for benefits after serving Nigeria.
For example, failure on the part of several governments since 1970 to assure victims of indoctrination or coercion that made innocent citizens to participate in armed conflicts had in the last few years motivated the formation of several organisations set up to fight marginalisation or alienation of indigenes of the short-lived Republic of Biafra.
Those calling for secession like MASSOB and IPOB all cite marginalisation or alienation as primary cause for their anger. There is no good reason for past administrations to wait for almost half a century to deliver on noble gestures made to all sides in the conflict since 1970. It is, however, significant that President Buhari, himself a hero of the civil war on the Nigerian side, has thought it fit to bring the civil war to a closure at a time that the country is also experiencing calls for secession.
Given the long wait by the police officers for their pensions and the haphazard nature of payment of benefits to all categories of workers in the country, it is important that the agency charged with payment of pension to the ex-Biafran police officers do so promptly and regularly, without erecting such obstacles as re-verification and re-certification that often frustrate retirees in other sectors of the polity. It is also necessary to extend full entitlements immediately to those who have been receiving partial payment, in view of the average age of survivors of a war that took place 50 years ago.
We congratulate the Federal Government and the former Nigerian police officers who had served in Biafra for a post-conflict policy that can enhance national healing.
