Nigeria Police UN peacekeepers grumble over unpaid allowances

Members of the Nigeria Police contingent to Liberia, Haiti and Sudan on United Nations’ Peacekeeping Missions, have discreetly protested the failure of the Police High Command to pay their duty tour allowances running into billions of naira, months after they returned to the country, the Nigerian Tribune reported on Saturday.

The 600-man contingent, which comprises officers and men drawn from various state police commands across the country, are suspicious that their superiors had squandered the $6,000 the UN had approved for each officer, and passed to the police headquarters in Abuja for onward disbursement to the peacekeepers.

The leadership of the terribly corrupt Nigeria Police has a reputation for graft and mismanagement of funds meant for personnel emolument and capital projects. So, the peacekeepers, who said they got confirmation from the UN headquarters that the money had been sent to Abuja, are apprehensive that their allowances have been pocketed.

But police spokesperson, Oluwole Amore, told the Tribune the police headquarters had just received the funds from the UN and was making arrangement to commence payment.

Affected officers and men, he said, would have to travel to Abuja to receive their allowances.