CPS suffers Set Back as Senate Passes Nigeria Police Force Pension Board Bill

• To establish Police Force pension board

BY Bonny Amadi

The Nigerian contributory pension scheme has suffered a setback as the country’s national assembly has given strength to the long years of agitation by police to be exempted from the pension scheme.

The Nigeria Police Force is now a step closer to leaving the contributory pension scheme following the Senate’s passage of the Nigeria Police Force Pension Board Bill.

This bill is designed to cure the lacuna by creating and establishing a special Nigerian police force pension board that would administer a pension scheme.

The bill made provision to establish the Nigeria Police Force pension board.

The legislation, earlier transmitted by the House of Representatives, secured concurrence in the upper chamber. “A bill that made provision to establish the Nigeria Police Force pension board has been passed by the Senate. The bill was forwarded from the House of Representatives for concurrence,”

With the bill now awaiting presidential assent, the Police are on track to operate their own independent pension administration, even as the Nigerian Inspector Gener- al of Police (IGP) Egbetokun has restated commitment to serving, retired police officers’ welfare.

It will be recalled that in September 2021, a bill to amend the Pension Reform Act 2014 to provide for the exemption of the Nigeria Police from the contributory pension scheme passed second reading.

When the bill is signed by the President, the Nigeria Police Force will have an independent pension body and exit the contributory pension scheme.

In September 2025, retired Nigerian police officers besieged the National Assembly in Abuja, describing the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) as a fraudulent arrangement designed to keep them in poverty after decades of service to the country.

The retirees, who camped at the Assembly complex, demanded that the federal government remove the Nigeria Police Force from the CPS, which they branded as “the latest 419 (fraud) in Nigeria.”