Retired Prison Officers Call for Inclusion in Health Insurance Scheme

Fidelis David

A group of retired officers of the Nigeria Correctional Service (NCS) have called on the President Muhammadu Buhari to include them in the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).

The group under the auspices of the Retired Correctional Officers, said they were ready to pull out of contributory pensions scheme, under which they are currently, and requested reinstatement into NHIS.

This was contained in a statement made available to journalists by the Coordinator of the Retired NCS, Mr Abidakun Olusanya, in Akure, the Ondo capital yesterday.

In the statement, the group also appealed to the Senate President, Senator Ahmed Lawan, and the Speaker House of Representatives, Mr. Femi Gbajabiamila, to set machinery in motion towards putting in place a law that would remove the retired correctional officers from the contributory pension scheme and revisit the cancellation of the NHIS to ameliorate their health challenges.

According to the group: “After 35 years of meritorious services, we were subjected to untold hardship, financial kwashiorkor and perennial psychological torture under the Contributory Pensions Scheme at present and we expressed our desire to pull out of the scheme on the ground of marginalisation, discrimination and unequal treatment on the payment of our pensions and other retirement benefits.

“For examples, we observed that our counterparts who are exempted from the Contributor Pension Scheme received fatter monthly take home while some of us as a Chief Superintendent of Correction Service received as low as N43,000 as monthly pension.

“While our counterparts in the military and DSS receive over N200,000 as monthly take home all because they have pulled out of the contributory pensions scheme. Returning us to the old scheme (defined benefit scheme) will reduce our suffering and hardship which we are subjected to by the reason of the said Contributory Pensions Scheme.”

The group urged the presidency and other relevant stakeholders that the police are working relentlessly for exemption from the contributory pensions scheme, since the correctional service retirees are under the same Criminal Justice Administration, saying their case should not be exceptional.

“We were also deprived the opportunity of accessing the National Health Insurance Scheme immediately after retirement and this is having negative impact on our health which our pension cannot meet. Some of us are now dying of age related sickness, hunger, hypertension, stroke, deprivation, unjustifiable inhuman and untimely death.”