Police hit the streets to protest unpaid salaries

Premium Times reports that there is confusion in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, as police officers have taken to the streets to protest unpaid salaries and allowances.

The report states that police officers deployed to the State on special duty, took to the streets, barricading major roads as they protested six months of unpaid allowances.

Borno is the epicenter and birth place of the Boko Haram insurgency. The terrorist sect commenced its war against the Nigerian State from Borno in 2009.

The protesting police officers were said to have been deployed to Borno State from various units across Nigeria to help in the fight against insurgency, Premium Times adds.

The angry police officers were said to be shooting sporadically into the air on Monday morning, forcing motorists to scamper to safety.

The protest is coming just hours after Boko Haram reportedly struck a camp for displaced persons in Borno, killing four.

Unpaid for six months

One police officer told Premium Times that “we can no longer tolerate this; for over six months now we have no allowances nor any decent accommodation; we sleep on corridors of officers and sometimes in the open air; enough is enough”.

The Commissioner of Police in Borno State, Damian Chukwu, who spoke to journalists over the phone, said the police is aware of the situation.

He explained that the unpaid allowances had to do with the delay in signing the 2018 budget.

Mr Chukwu said Borno State has the largest deployment of police officers on special duty in the country. He said there are about 44 units of such deployments in the State.

President Buhari pledged to eradicate the Boko Haram insurgency during his electioneering campaign.

The military has been at the forefront of the Boko Haram war with the police often relegated to the background no thanks to inadequate equipment, poor training, poor remuneration and poor motivation.

The Nigerian government and military chiefs often say but there has been no let up in attacks from the sect since 2009.