Some retired police officers, on Tuesday, besieged the national assembly over unpaid pensions.

The retirees are demanding that they be removed from the contributory pension scheme.

In a letter dated May 21 and addressed to Senate President Godswill Akpabio, the retirees said many of them have lost their lives due to the prevailing economic hardship.

“We believe that our peaceful and legal approach to this agitation would not be taken for granted by you,” the letter reads

“We must also appreciate both the members of the Upper and the Lower Chambers who have also painstakingly taken the matter through several sessions of legislative actions spanning investigative hearings, public hearings.

“And passage of the Police Exit Bill from CPS and Police Pension Board Bill in our favour, privately initiated bills by Sen. Elisha Abbo and Hon. Francis Waive of the Senate and House of Representative respectively, in the 9th NASS.

“Sir, permit us to intimate our dear Senate President that the Bill for an Act to establish the Nigeria Police Pension Board to handle Pension matters for personnel of the Force and for connected purposes was passed by the 9th Assembly Senate on Tuesday 5th June, 2023.

“Whereas the sister bill to exempt the Police Force from the application of the Contributory Pensions Scheme under the CPS 2014 and for related matters which public hearing was conducted since 22/02/22 by the House Committee on Pensions of the 9th Assembly, came up in the floor of the 10th Assembly on 23rd November, 2023 for harmonization process but is still pending till date.

“The speedy harmonisation and transmission of these bills to the President for assent become absolutely necessary due to very obvious reasons.

“A few of such reasons is the rate at which Retired police officers die because of hardship caused by the present economic situation in Nigeria.”

Speaking with the retirees, Yunus Akintunde, deputy chair of the senate committee on police, said the national assembly is working to resolve the issue.

Karim Khan, chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), says some elected leaders told him that the ICC was built for Africa and “thugs like Vladimir Putin”, the Russian president.

The ICC is the first and only permanent international court with jurisdiction to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and aggression.

The court’s member states are obliged to immediately arrest the wanted person if on their territory.

Israel and the US, the Jewish nation’s biggest ally, are not members of the ICC.

Khan did not specify which elected leader or leaders he was referring to, but expressed his disapproval at apparent threats from the US over the ICC’s intention to seek arrest warrants against Benjamin Netanyahu, prime minister of Israel.

The ICC is also asking for an arrest warrant for Yoav Gallant, Israeli defence minister. Both men have been accused of war crimes.

The court’s decision to prosecute Israeli authorities has been met with ire from Israel and the US.

“Target Israel and we will target you. If you move forward with the measures indicated in the report, we will move to end all American support for the ICC, sanction your employees and associates, and bar you and your families from the United States,” a letter signed by some senators reads.

“You have been warned.”

US President Joe Biden had also described the allegations against Israel as “outrageous”.

“Let me be clear, we reject the ICC’s application for arrest warrants against Israeli leaders,” Biden said at a Jewish American Heritage Month event at the White House on Monday.

“There is no equivalence between Israel and Hamas.”

‘IT’S NOT GENOCIDE’

In a CNN interview on Monday, Khan described the letter as a threat, maintaining that the ICC’s values are synonymous with American beliefs.

“And, of course, I’ve had some elected leaders speak to me and be very blunt. ‘This court is built for Africa and for thugs like Putin,’ was what one senior leader told me,” Khan said, adding that “we don’t view it like that”.

“We are not going to be swayed by the different types of threats, some of which are public and some maybe are not,” he added.

The ICC is also seeking warrants for three Hamas chiefs — Yahya Sinwar, leader of the Palestinian militant group; Mohammed Al-Masri, leader of the Al Qassem Brigades; and Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’ political leader.

Charges against the Hamas leaders include “extermination, murder, taking of hostages, rape and sexual assault in detention”.

Netanyahu and Gallant are being charged for “causing extermination, causing starvation as a method of war, including the denial of humanitarian relief supplies, deliberately targeting civilians in conflict”.

All charges are in relation to the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.

Israel is also facing a separate charge of alleged genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) as brought forward by South Africa.

Biden said Israel is not committing genocide in Gaza.

“Contrary to allegations against Israel made by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), what’s happening in Gaza is not genocide. We reject that,” Biden added.

Several thousands of Iranians gathered Tuesday to mourn President Ebrahim Raisi and seven members of his entourage who were killed in a helicopter crash on a fog-shrouded mountainside in the northwest.

Waving Iranian flags and portraits of the late president, mourners set off from a central square in the northwestern city of Tabriz, where Raisi was headed when his helicopter crashed on Sunday.

They walked behind a lorry carrying the coffins of Raisi and his seven aides.

Their helicopter lost communications while it was on its way back to Tabriz after Raisi attended the inauguration of a joint dam project on the Aras river, which forms part of the border with Azerbaijan, in a ceremony with his counterpart Ilham Aliyev.

A massive search and rescue operation was launched on Sunday when two other helicopters flying alongside Raisi’s lost contact with his aircraft in bad weather.

State television announced his death in a report early on Monday, saying “the servant of the Iranian nation, Ayatollah Ebrahim Raisi, has achieved the highest level of martyrdom”, showing pictures of him as a voice recited the Koran.

Killed alongside the Iranian president were Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, provincial officials, and members of his security team.

Iran’s armed forces chief of staff Mohammad Bagheri ordered an investigation into the cause of the crash as Iranians in cities nationwide gathered to mourn Raisi and his entourage.

Tens of thousands gathered in the capital’s Valiasr Square on Monday.

Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has ultimate authority in Iran, declared five days of national mourning and assigned vice president Mohammad Mokhber, 68, as caretaker president until a presidential election can be held.

State media later announced that the election would will be held on June 28.

Iran’s top nuclear negotiator Ali Bagheri, who served as deputy to Amir-Abdollahian, was named acting foreign minister.

From Tabriz, Raisi’s body will be flown to the Shiite clerical centre of Qom on Tuesday before being moved to Tehran that evening.

Processions will be held in in the capital on Wednesday morning before Khamenei leads prayers at a farewell ceremony.

Raisi’s body will then be flown to his home city of Mashhad, in the northeast, where he will be buried on Thursday evening after funeral rites.

Raisi, 63, had been in office since 2021. The ultra-conservative’s time in office saw mass protests, a deepening economic crisis and unprecedented armed exchanges with arch-enemy Israel.

Raisi succeeded the moderate Hassan Rouhani, at a time when the economy was battered by US sanctions imposed over Iran’s nuclear activities.

Condolence messages flooded in from Iran’s allies around the region, including the Syrian government, Palestinian militant group Hamas and Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

It was an unprecedented Hamas attack on Israel that sparked the devastating war in Gaza, now in its eighth month, and soaring tensions between Israel and the “resistance axis” led by Iran.

Israel’s killing of seven Revolutionary Guards in a drone strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus on April 1 triggered Iran’s first ever direct attack on Israel, involving hundreds of missiles and drones.

In a speech hours before his death, Raisi underlined Iran’s support for the Palestinians, a centrepiece of its foreign policy since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Palestinian flags were raised alongside Iranian flags at ceremonies held for the late president.

AFP