Plights Of Police Widows Who Are Denied Husbands’ Benefits

THERE has been an obvious lack of care for widows of police officers and men killed in the last six years of Boko Haram’s onslaught in Borno State and the North-East in general. Although a good number of living police officers and men avoid questions relating to the condition of the families of their fallen colleagues when approached for comments in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, Saturday Tribune observed that the police personnel were worried about the plights of the hundreds of widows and their children. Scores of these widows are yet to get the benefits due to their late breadwinners from the police authorities. Moved by their predicaments, the immediate Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Abubakar, had distributed foodstuffs to some of the widows in Maiduguri. While some of the widows told Saturday Tribune that they were scared to speak for fear of witch-hunting by the authorities, others raised their voices and alleged that some people are sitting on the benefits that would have cushioned the effect of the absence of their hubbies and made a difference in their lives. A widow a mother of three, Zara Mamman, expressed regrets that her family and others sharing the same experience had lost direction since the death of their husbands. According to her, many of the women are yet to get their dead husbands’ entitlements. “We are being forced out of the barracks and our children are out of school. I am speaking the minds of many women here and I want to use this opportunity to appeal for the release of our husbands’ entitlements to us,” she said. On her own part, Helen Samuel said her husband, attached to a metro police station in Maiduguri, was killed two years ago, but she could not go back to her village. “I have five children but we are still in Maiduguri because the pension benefits of my husband are not ready yet,” she said. A 24-year-old man, Mohammed Ali, who claimed to the eldest son of his father, who was also killed in Maiduguri, said: “Our expectation was that once we got the benefits of our father, we would go back to Alkaleri in Bauchi State and settle down. For now, our mother sells baked beans to augment the little we are getting from the police authorities.” For Jummai Enoch, a widow and mother of two children, she is finding life very difficult. “I have been asked several times to leave the barracks but I refused because I can’t go back to my parents with a burden. I want to get the entitlements of my husband who died in active service,” she said. Jummai said after waiting for a long time, she and fellow widows took their case to some civil society organisations, but they were yet to see the result. She, however, said they would not give up until every penny belonging to their dead spouses is released to them by the police authorities . The North-East zonal coordinator of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), Babangida Labaran, admitted the receipt of complaints from some of the widows. “We have approached many pension administrators and have succeeded in fast-tracking the release of the entitlements of their breadwinners. We are still pursuing other cases,” he said. One Mrs Kuve Matthew Vincent said her husband and several other policemen were killed in a recent attack by Boko Haram insurgents on Gamboru, a border town near Cameroun. She claimed that the deaths would have been avoided if the policemen had been given suitable weapons to confront the terrorists. Kuve, who was one of the beneficiaries of a N1 million gift from government, said: “Our husbands were killed because they were made to confront insurgents without sophisticated weapons and it will be disastrous to allow this to continue.” She added that the Federal Government could have limited the casualties in the fight against insurgents if policemen were well equipped, lamenting that she lost her husband who was only two weeks away from being promoted to the rank of a sergeant. She said the pain of seeing one’s husband in the morning going to work but having his corpse returned in the evening was unbearable. “Something should be done to stop this ugly trend,” the woman stated. She, however, commended the Borno State police command for its assistance pending the release of their slain husbands’ entitlements.