MILITARY PENSION BOARD TO PAY BENEFITS OF ARMY RETIREES TO NEXT OF KINS OF DECEASED PERSONNEL OF THE ARMED FORCES OF NIGERIA

The Military Pensions Board (MPB) has announced that pensions would be paid to military retirees as well as death benefits to Next-of-Kins (NOKs) of deceased personnel of the Armed Forces of Nigeria (AFN). 

This was disclosed in the statement released by the Chairman Military Pensions Board, CDRE SA LAWAL.

Over the years, MPB has carried out major internal reforms, some of which include the computerization of its operations, installation of the manual and digital archiving systems as well as computerization and re-organization of gratuity and pensions payment system to eliminate unnecessary delays.

 The Board has now identified that there is an urgent need to ditch the expensive and archaic manual system of verifying military pensioners which often subjects aged military retirees to untold hardships and replace it with an electronic system which will facilitate remote verification of military pensioners, in line with global best practices.

 The reason behind this is to enlighten the Armed Forces of Nigeria personnel with the essence of replacing the current manual system of verifying military pensioners with an electronic verification system. To achieve this, the paper will give an overview of the manual system of verification and its defects. Furthermore, it will discuss the proposed electronic verification system and the justification for its introduction. 

 Now, the manual verification of military retirees in Nigeria is usually scheduled to take place biennially at selected locations in the country. The exercise is aimed at determining the actual strength of active military retirees on the MPB’s payroll as well as to update the retirees’ personal details (in case of any changes).

In 2017, the last verification exercise of military pensioners was conducted and it was done manually. The manual system entails movement of personnel and materials within the 36 states of the Federation including the Federal Capital Territory.

It also involves the assemblage of retired military pensioners at designated locations across the federation with different challenges encountered in the process. Military pensioners resident outside the country might also need to congregate at designated Embassies /High Commission to partake in the process.

 The manual system of verification of military pensioners is actually cumbersome, stressful, capital intensive and with lots of challenges, including the possibility of connivance and manipulation of the process by the personnel and retirees involved in the exercise.

Apart from the foregoing, manual verification exercise requires huge expenditure on logistics and personnel costs to execute it successfully. Military retirees who are unable to partake in the exercise for one reason or the other are assumed dead and their monthly pensions stopped till they appear physically at the Board’s HQ for clearance and inclusion on payroll. 

Furthermore, the insistence on retirees’ presence before they are verified compels the aged and probably sick retirees to travel long distances to participate in the exercise, thereby exposing them to unnecessary risks and possible accidents. Also, the outbreak of Covid-19 has made gathering large number of persons in a place at this particular time of a pandemic, a looming disaster.

In order to address the shortfalls in the existing manual system of verifying military pensioners, an electronic system of verification has been proposed.

The MPB is presently proposing an electronic verification exercise of military pensioners in the third quarter of the year in conjunction with a forefront IT Company that will midwife and conduct the electronic verification exercise.

 However, the proposed electronic verification system will be conducted through the configuration of a mobile App and the establishment of an Electronic Verification Management System (EVMS) specifically for the MPB. The proposed EVMS is an integrated system that provides platforms for easy and effective verification of active military retirees who are on the payroll of the MPB at the time of the exercise.

The system also affords simultaneous verification of military pensioners in Nigeria and those in the diaspora through the use of the mobile App and the established EVMS.

This mobile App is linked to the EVMS is configured and published on various application stores, capable of operating on android, IOS or Windows operating systems or gadgets. Furthermore, the proposed EVMS is linked to the MPB backend server as well as the banking industry database for the purpose of confirming information keyed-in by individual pensioners, such as the BVN, NIN or Service Numbers in order to gain access into the App and conduct a self-verification exercise.

The electronic verification exercise would ensure that military retirees resident within and outside the country have the opportunity of being verified simultaneously whilst also enhancing efficiency in the discharge of the Board’s mandate.

Credit: Eons Intelligence