By Anene Ugoani
Special Correspondent, Enugu

National President of the Association of Retired War – Affected Police Officers (ARWAPO), Charles Machie, told newsmen in Enugu on Tuesday at the end of an emergency meeting of the union that he and his colleagues were suffering untold hardship as a result of the non-payment of their entitlements.

He said his investigations showed that the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Sunday Ehindero, and the Minister of Police Affairs, Broderick Bozimo, were obstructing the payment of gratuities and pensions to members of the ARWAPO.

The discovery that Ehindero and Bozimo were standing in their way, he said, made him to write “a strongly worded petition, dated August 12, 2004” to President Obasanjo informing him of how the duo had refused to carry out his directives on the payment of their gratuities and pensions.

Machie, who was the IGP in the defunct Republic of Biafra, said President Obasanjo reacted swiftly by giving marching orders to Ehindero and Bozimo to implement the general amnesty he granted to members of the Nigeria Police who served in Biafra by paying their entitlements.

He noted that Bozimo, issued a statement on receiving the President’s directives saying that former Biafran policemen would soon be paid their entitlements.

He said in spite of his findings that the N500 million needed to pay the former Biafran policemen was included in the 2002 and 2005 budgets, not even a kobo had been paid to the affected officers.

He also recounted how he forwarded a second petition to President Obasanjo on June 23, 2005 on the stubbornness of Ehindero and Bozimo. “In that petition, I requested President Obasanjo to call both men to order over the non-implementation of the general amnesty he granted us five years ago.”

Machie condemned members of the Enugu State Houses of Assembly and National Assembly from the South-East and South-South zones for lack luster attitude towards helping the former Biafran policemen to get their benefits.

In the 11 – point communiqué they issued when they rose from the emergency meeting at the Police Officers’ Mess, they commended President Obasanjo for converting their dismissal at the end of the 30 – month civil war to retirement.