The National Pension Commission (PenCom) has set a target of three million additional funded active pension accounts within one year as part of efforts to expand pension coverage beyond the formal sector.
The Director-General of PenCom, Ms Omolola Oloworaran, disclosed this at the ongoing pension summit in Abuja, stressing the need to extend retirement security to traders, artisans, farmers, entrepreneurs and other Nigerians in the informal sector.
Oloworaran said the contributory pension system must move beyond the payroll to reach workers across markets, motor parks, farms and other economic clusters.
“I have asked the industry to commit to three million additional funded active accounts in the next one year. And the good news, the owners of all our pension fund administrators have committed to that,” she said.
She emphasised that the target went beyond opening accounts to ensuring that workers actively saved towards retirement.
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“Not registrations, three million funded active accounts, new accounts. Because an empty account is a statistic, but a funded account is a future,” she added.
The PenCom boss said Nigeria had made significant progress in pension asset growth, with total assets rising from N20.79 trillion in July 2024 to N31.8 trillion by the end of August 2026.
She, however, noted that the country’s pension assets remained relatively small compared with the size of its economy, highlighting the need to deepen coverage and strengthen the retirement savings system.
“Measured against what Nigeria could become, we have barely begun,” she said.
Oloworaran identified limited coverage, inadequate pension benefits and employers’ failure to remit pension contributions as major challenges requiring urgent attention.
She lamented that millions of Nigerians in the informal sector risked entering old age without adequate financial support, despite years of productive work.
“A pension system that covers only the payroll is not a national pension system; it is a privileged pension system,” she said.
On pension adequacy, the PenCom chief expressed concern that many private-sector workers retired on benefits below the national minimum wage because contributions were calculated on only a fraction of their earnings.
According to her, almost 70 per cent of private-sector employees end up with pensions below the national minimum wage, while more than 55 per cent of all retirees whose pensions fall below the threshold come from the private sector.
“Our private-sector workers are retiring into poverty. This must change,” she said.
She urged employers to calculate pension contributions on workers’ actual earnings and ensure timely remittance, warning against the diversion of deductions meant for employees’ retirement savings.
“When an employer deducts workers’ pension contribution and fails to remit it, that is not an administrative lapse. It is theft from the future of a Nigerian family,” Oloworaran said.
Deliver Returns
The PenCom director-general also challenged pension fund operators to deliver returns that consistently outperform inflation, stressing that investment performance must translate into improved financial security for contributors.
“Beating inflation is not an aspiration; it is your job,” she said, adding that real returns were essential to preserving the value of workers’ retirement savings.
She further announced that pension fund administrators and pension fund custodians must complete their recapitalisation by June 30, 2027, insisting that the commission would enforce the deadline.
“We are not changing our minds,” she said.
Oloworaran also called on federal and state governments to remit pension contributions promptly, fund accrued pension rights and ensure that more states joined the Contributory Pension Scheme.
She stressed that pension assets could support national development through investments in infrastructure, housing, power and enterprise, provided contributors’ interests remained the priority.
“Pension money is not government money, it is not industry money. It is the deferred wages of Nigerian workers,” she said.
The PenCom chief maintained that every investment must be guided by prudence, transparency and fiduciary responsibility to protect workers’ savings.
She said the next phase of pension reform must focus on extending coverage, improving benefits, enforcing compliance and building public trust in the system.
The summit, themed “Pensions for All,” is aimed at broadening participation in Nigeria’s pension system and improving retirement security for workers across different sectors of the economy.
