We’re hungry – Police officers cry out over unpaid six months’ salaries

The newly recruited constables into the Nigeria Police Force have cried out over the non-payment of their six months salaries.

The new constables who passed out of police colleges in April, told TrackNews exclusively that they are yet to be paid salaries since they joined the force.

Some of the policemen, while speaking with our correspondent, said they have been reporting at their respective duty posts without pay since April.

Pleading anonymity, the police recruits said they expected to be paid in October after going to the Force Headquarters in Abuja for IPPS documentation in September.

They lamented that other police officers were paid on Monday, but they were ignored.

“We are hungry. We have been working since April without any salary. Our commanders won’t stop posting us out for duties, despite the fact that we are not paid.

“Many of us till depend on our parents and relatives to feed ourselves. It’s been very tough. Many of us have borrowed money from people while also owing food vendors around our areas. Most times we wait by the roadside to get free ride, when we don’t have money for transport fare. This is not how officers of the law should be treated.

“Don’t forget that one of us was killed by armed robbers in Kogi on June 4. That’s the risk in this job, yet our welfare is not important to the authorities. How can anybody work for six months without being paid?.

“If this had happened in the civil service, you would have seen them on the street with placards. But, we are voiceless. We dare not talk about it outside. We should be suffering and smiling. It doesn’t happen like that in other agencies,” some of the policemen told TrackNews in an exclusive interview.