Some retired personnel of the Nigerian Navy have threatened to storm the Naval command headquarters to protest the non-payment of their terminal leave and packing allowances.
The Ex-Naval personnel of the 1984 set who retired in the year 2020 expressed their grievances over how they are made to wait endlessly to get their owed allowances while those who retired earlier than them have received their payment in full.
In a letter dated March 16, the retirees explained that they had written to the Chief of Naval Staff (CNS), Vice Admiral Awwal Gambo, on three occasions and visited the national headquarters to call his attention to their plight but it was all to no avail.
Sounding a note of warning to the Naval command, the aggrieved retirees urged the CNS to pay up to avoid a ‘historic embarrassment of protest’ at the Naval headquarters.
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“The leadership of the Coalition Of Concerned Veterans humbly bring to the notice of the Chief Of Naval Staff, two previous letters were written on the above subject and regret to observe that nothing practicable has been done to address the issues, despite our visit to the Naval Headquarters to meet with the Director Veterans affairs (NN) and the Chief Of Account and budgeting in June 2022.
“We are aware of the great achievements of the Chief Of Naval staff in his quest to reposition the service and better the lots of personnel under his command but also regret that some top officials at the headquarters want to give his administration a bad name in the twilight of his stewardship, despite all efforts as well as unofficially Intervention by top officials of the MOD to address the issue.
“It is not our intension to cause the Chief Of Naval Staff a “historic embarrassment” of protest to the Naval Headquarters, as we did to the Ministry of Defence in September 2022. We hope reasons will prevail to discourage our assemblage at the Headquarters gate of the Naval complex in a few weeks if our request/demands are not the shortest possible time.”
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When contacted by newsmen on Tuesday, the Navy Spokesperson, Commodore Adedotun Ayo-Vaughan, related the willingness of the service to pay the retirees, adding that some technicalities to ascertain if they are qualified for the allowances must first be resolved.
“Concerning your inquiry, there is a need to understand the background of the issue. Sometimes in 2019, there was the manual of financial administration for the Armed Forces of Nigeria was released and eventually took effect in 2020. These categories of personnel left the service before the document which had in it some of the allowances they said we owed them.
“They retired from the service before there were appropriate resources to back up some of the allowances indicated in this document which was signed by the president. Also, there are technicalities as to whether or not they are beneficiaries of the allowance contained in the document which came to be at about the time they left the service and which was eventually implemented when they had left the service. That is the issue. It is not that we are not desirous of paying them.”
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