The Nigerian Government has reviewed the pensions of 2,116 retirees of the defunct Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF) for the first time in 21 years, raising their combined monthly benefits from ₦12.56 million to ₦159.95 million and paying ₦8.7 billion in outstanding arrears.
The Director-General of the National Pension Commission (PenCom), Omolola Oloworaran, disclosed this at the PenCom Conference for Journalists in Abuja, describing the intervention as a major step towards addressing longstanding pension liabilities and improving retirees’ welfare.
“For the first time in 21 years, pensioners of the defunct Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund have had their pensions reviewed. Their pensions had stood still since 2005,” she said.
Oloworaran explained that the review followed the commission’s decision to invoke its statutory powers to secure an adjustment in the pensioners’ benefits.
“We invoked the law, directed a full review, and delivered an unprecedented increase of 1,173 per cent,” she stated.
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Illustrating the impact of the intervention, the PenCom chief said one retiree whose monthly pension was about ₦18,000 now receives approximately ₦206,000.
“Twenty-one years of waiting, answered in a single decision,” she stated.
The PenCom Director-General also disclosed that the Nigerian Government had cleared inherited pension liabilities, some of which had remained outstanding since 2007, through a ₦758 billion Federal Government Pension Bond approved by President Bola Tinubu.
“For the first time, the Government has cleared the pension liabilities it inherited, some of them outstanding since 2007, almost two decades,” Oloworaran said.
According to her, payments under the intervention have reached 957,045 beneficiaries, addressing outstanding obligations accumulated across successive administrations.
“Nearly one million Nigerians. These obligations had passed from one administration to the next. This administration chose to settle them,” she added.
The interventions form part of broader efforts to resolve outstanding pension obligations and strengthen confidence in Nigeria’s retirement benefits system.
The developments also highlight the importance of timely pension reviews, adequate funding and effective regulatory oversight in protecting retirees from prolonged delays in receiving their entitlements.
For Nigerian workers and pensioners, the effectiveness of pension reforms will ultimately depend on whether benefits are paid when due and retirees can maintain a reasonable standard of living after leaving active service.
