Nigeria Association of Retired Civil Defence Officers (NARCDO) has called on the Federal Government to appoint outstanding retired officers into strategic positions of government.
NARCDO President, Dr Ewurum Chidi, Deputy Commandant General (rtd), said this on Tuesday during the inauguration of the Association and its National Secretariat by the Minister of Interior, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola in Abuja.
The Minister, represented by the Permanent Secretary, Dr Shuaibu Belgore, also inaugurated the newly reconstructed NSCDC parade ground, two units of two bedrooms, one unit of one bedroom flats at the Corps Headquarters where he commended the NSCDC CG for his transformation efforts in the agency towards having a motivated workforce to tackle emerging security challenges in the country.
Ewurum said that that the non-implementation of the proposed conditions of service, gratuity and pensions to retired Nigeria Security and Civil Defence (NSCDC) officers had been a challenge.
He said that some of the problems were not peculiar to NARDCO alone but to the generality of the Corps.
He said that proffering solutions to these challenges will bring an end to the difficulties experienced by most retirees.
He however acknowledged that the Federal Government through the Minister of Interior, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola and the NSCDC Commandant General, Ahmed Abubakar Audi, mni, OFR, had improved the working conditions of personnel.
“We sincerely appreciate the milestone and laudable achievements in the areas of recruitment, promotion, training and retraining of personnel, infrastructural development and other policy reforms,” he said.
The pioneer National President said that the association was ready to package and roll-out action plans that will help alleviate the sufferings of its members and the Corps in general.
He said that some of the proposed priority plans of the Association was to set up a cooperative society with future hopes of expanding into a Micro-Finance bank.
DCG Ewurum (rtd) said that there are plans to collaborate with government at all levels including public and private sectors, financial institutions, real estate agencies among others.
The Minister of Interior said that the establishment of the association was of great disposition which will help the affairs of the Corps.
Aregbesola said that the Federal Government will continuously support the growth of Corps, adding that it had recently inaugurated new NSCDC Commands in Jos, Keffi and Sokoto.
NSCDC CG said that what brought about the establishment of NARDCO and its office complex was the plight of NSCDC retirees.
“Having this association is a way of encouraging them just like other organisations because we have noticed that some of them live in agony and want, while others have been neglected, which shouldn’t be the case,” he said.
Audi said that the operations of the Association will give room for collaborations with financial institutions which will help bring it to a level of competition with other associations.