By Israel Adebiyi

Fela Anikulapo Kuti didn’t just sing, he bled truths. His lyrics, raw and volcanic, unwrapped the Nigerian experience in ways that no policy paper or commission report ever could. And in his classic hit “Confusion Break Bone,” he sang of a dead body caught between the indignity of abandonment and the cruelty of its mourners—betrayed in life and dishonored in death.

This week, that metaphor leapt out of vinyl and echoed in real life: Retired police officers, drenched in the Abuja rain, stood like withered monuments at the gates of Nigeria’s National Assembly. Their uniforms are long gone, their batons traded for placards, and their obedience—once unquestioning—now curdled into a desperate defiance.

These are the same men who once obeyed the “last order,” whether it was to disperse protesting students, to break up industrial actions, or to quell dissent with shields and tear gas. They were Nigeria’s iron fist. They bore the insults, the bullets, the loneliness. They were denied the right to strike, to unionize, or to say no. Now they are in the same trenches as those they once confronted.

And what a sight it was.

Elderly men—some stooped, others on walking sticks—stood in the rain with sagging clothes and heavier hearts. Their chant was not angry; it was haunting. Remove us from the contributory pension scheme, they cried. We are tired of dying poor. The Contributory Pension Scheme, a policy built with the pretense of reform, has become a gaping wound that bleeds out whatever dignity retirement is supposed to offer.

Retired Chief Superintendent Manir Lawal, 67, spoke with a quiver in his voice:

“We served this country faithfully. We deserve to retire in dignity. This scheme has impoverished us. It is our right to demand better.”

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But what is dignity in a country where old age is a curse? Where retirees slump and die in biometric verification queues? Where pensions are delayed like unwanted handouts, and where death is often the only exit from poverty?

This is not just the police story. This is the Nigerian worker’s tragedy. The nurse who gave 35 years to a state hospital only to beg for her gratuity. The teacher who moulded generations but now eats once a day. The civil servant who used to process others’ salaries and now doesn’t receive his.

Nigeria, it appears, is a nation that celebrates you while you bleed and forgets you once you collapse.

These retired officers are the faces of a broken promise. The very system they upheld has turned against them. The guns they once bore are silent now. And no sirens accompany them as they sleep on floors in the rain outside the so-called hallowed chambers of power.

Why does Nigeria treat its labour force like chewing sticks—use, discard, forget?

The Monday protest wasn’t just a cry for pensions. It was a funeral for faith in the system. It was a statement that even uniforms do not shield one from poverty. That after the medals are given and the rifles turned in, hunger becomes your new commanding officer.

We must ask the hard questions: Why are those who dedicated their productive years to protecting the country begging for bread? Why must every retiree become a lobbyist for their own entitlements? Why does justice retire the moment service ends?

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But even this heartbreak is not equal-opportunity.

While the average Nigerian retiree fades into the background of national neglect, the political elite write golden exits for themselves. In many states, governors—some of whom could barely pay salaries during their tenure—have enshrined laws that guarantee themselves lifetime pensions, fleet of cars, luxury homes in multiple cities, foreign medical trips, and even security details paid for by the state.

A retired civil servant gets a verification form.
A retired governor gets a diplomatic passport.
A retired police officer gets rain.
A former senator gets a seat at the next constitutional review committee.

The contrasts are obscene.

It gets worse. These looters of public legacy do not just walk away with the treasury keys—they pass the code to their children. Nigeria has become a democracy of dynasties. Fathers rig the system. Sons inherit it.

So, when the ruling class clinks glasses in Abuja over another fuel subsidy cut, or celebrates “pension reforms” that deepen inequality, who really weeps for the rain-soaked old men at the gate? Certainly not the elite who now fly private jets to Dubai, London, France and other choice locations, for annual medicals. Not the lawmakers who collect severance packages in millions after just four years of sitting pretty in power.

The average Nigerian worker retires into penury. The ruling class retires into paradise.

The old men in uniform have served their time. The question is: when will the country serve them back?

Even the police—agents of state repression in the eyes of many—are waking up to the betrayal. And if the state could do them this dirty, what hope is there for teachers, local government workers, secretariat cleaners, and the army of underpaid civil servants?

The retirees didn’t break the laws. They enforced them. They didn’t shirk duty. They endured it. Now, their tears join the long, sorrowful river of abandoned patriots.

One hopes the tearful protest of these police retirees does not go the way of other protests— powerful noise drowned by official deafness. Because beyond their drenched uniforms and trembling chants is a deeper truth: Nigeria is a graveyard of gratitude.

Let this protest mark a turning point, not just in police welfare, but in how Nigeria treats those who give their lives in its service. Because, truly, double wahala dey, not just for the dead body, but also for the country that lets its elders die in vain.

Ijaw Publishers’ Forum (IPF) in Nigeria, has urged president Bola Ahmed Tinubu to institute a probe into the financial management of the managing director of the Niger Delta development Commission (NDDC) and the entire board, alleging that NDDC had been turned to ATM machine for a few.

In a statement signed by the IPF spokesman, Comrade Ezekiel Kagbala, and made available to newsmen in Warri, Delta State, the media body further called on prominent Niger Delta leaders to prevail on the Ogbuku-led NDDC management to give stewardship of the trillions accrued to the commission over the period of his administration.

The IPF argued that the probe becomes imperative considering the “non-impactful programmes the commission is rerunning to allegedly siphon money belonging to the people of Niger Delta to their individual pockets.”

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According to the media body, “Ogbuku is not interested in lifting Niger Delta region out of poverty, underdevelopment but interested in littering the region with abandoned projects and substandard programs.”

The forum alleged that despite the “trillions accrued to the NDDC for the period of Ogbuku-led administration,” there are no rural electricity, drinkable water, good roads, bridges to connect rural communities to the urban cities, and an adequate health care centre among among Niger Delta rural and riverine communities.

The forum also lamented that there was no any riverine community being connected to the national grid, rather, “Ogbuku keeps installing low cost street solar lights that have no value in the lives of the people in a selective manner.”

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IPF insisted that NDDC “fake programs such as Project Hope, NDDC Youth Internship Scheme, Niger Delta Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Trade, Mines, and Agriculture (NDCCITMA) should be probed,” adding that they were not impactful but a “medium of syphoning the commission’s treasury.”

The media council further alleged that “Ogbuku was not working for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s interest in winning the Niger Delta’s support, but only interested in becoming the next governor of Bayelsa State.”

The IFP further accused Ogbuku of “doing selective empowerment of boys that were loyal to him, political leaders he feels will support him for his political ambition, his numerous girl friends and his Ayakoro community.”

The IPF warned that Tinubu’s re-election bid would suffer a terrible setback if Ogbuku-led NDDC management was not called to order.

The body added that many Niger Delta youth and communities were already angry at Tinubu for imposing Ogbuku on the throat of the commission and its people.

The Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND), Centre of Excellence for Integrated Farming System of the Federal Polytechnic, Bauchi has trained 50 women and youth on broiler chicken production in the state.

Speaking during the flag off of the 5-day training on Tuesday, Dr. Abdullahi Muhammad, Director, TETFUND Centre of Excellence of the polytechnic, said that the training is aimed to help the trainees cope with the current economic conditions.

Muhammad who called on the participants to pay closer attention to what would be taught, disclosed plans to expand the training for the benefit of youth across the northeast subregion.

“Most of our youth in this region are job seekers and we want to see a situation where by we reform the job seekers to be job givers or employers of labour.

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“We look at what we can train them on that will give them quick return or generate income in a shorter period of time and that’s why we came up with broiler chicken production which within eight weeks, they can dispose their birds and bring another sets in,” he said.

He urged the participants to make maximum use of the opportunity of the training which he said, would greatly serve as a tangible means of livelihood for them.

Similarly, Shamsu Abdu, Head of Department (HOD), Mass Communication of the polytechnic, congratulated the centre for organising the training which he called corporate social responsibility of giving back to the society.

According to him, youth empowerment is a crucial and important aspect of human development which is very important especially at this critical time when government jobs were limited and scarce.

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“It’s high time that we try to look inwards and understand some of our strengths, what we can do to make ourselves self -reliant and independent.

“I believe that at the end of this programme, participants will learn the practical, theoretical knowledge and skills on how to be self-reliant and employers of labour,” said the HOD.

Also speaking, Dr Musa Adamu, Bauchi state Coordinator of the World Bank assisted Livestock Productivity and Resilience Support (L-PRES) Project, urged the youth in the Northeast subregion to take advantage of the Project towards contributing to the development of the livestock subsector in the country.

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Adamu said the project in Bauchi is focusing on key value chains of Sheep, Goat, Beef and Dairy production, hence the need for youth to take advantage of the opportunity towards contributing to the federal government’s livestock initiative.

Declaring the training open, the Rector of the polytechnic, Alh. Sani Usman appreciated TETFUND for finding the institution worthy of establishing the only centre of excellence among polytechnics in the entire Northeast.

Represented by Dr Dauda Ali, the Deputy Director, Academic Planning and Quality Assurance, the Rector called for replication of such trainings for the benefit of youth in the entire Northeast subregion.