Retired prison officers beg Buhari for inclusion in NHIS

Many are dying of hunger, hypertension, stroke, age-related sickness

Retired officers of the Nigeria Correctional Service have appealed to President Muhammadu Buhari to include them in the National Health Insurance Scheme, NHIS.

The retired officers 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.

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

“For example, 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.

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, “our case should not be exceptional.

“We have also deprived the opportunity of accessing the National Health Insurance Scheme immediately after retirement and this is having a negative impact on our health which our pension cannot meet.

They lamented that “Some of us are now dying of age-related sickness, hunger, hypertension, stroke, deprivation, unjustifiable inhuman and untimely death.