Omolola Oloworaran, Director-Common of the Nationwide Pension Fee (PenCom), voiced her considerations in regards to the troubling downturn in Nigeria’s pension business since 2021.
Talking on Thursday on the 2025 Pension Business Management Retreat, themed ‘Sustainable Retirement – Strategic Blueprint for {Economic} Growth and Inclusion,’ she make clear the Pension Reform Act of 2004, which grants PenCom the authority to control, oversee, and make sure the easy operation of pension affairs within the nation.
Oloworaran elaborated on the Fee’s pivotal position, notably in regulating and supervising the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS), which was launched by the Act.
Addressing the retreat’s attendees, she emphasised the vital want for stakeholders to rethink Nigeria’s pension future. The target: to safeguard and increase retirement financial savings, harness the potential of pension belongings, and leverage them as a driving power for the nation’s {economic} growth.
During the last 20 years, Nigeria’s pension sector has made vital strides, amassing greater than N23 trillion in belongings and serving over 10 million contributors, all underneath a regulatory framework that has earned international respect.
Regardless of these successes, Oloworaran pointed to an uncomfortable actuality: the business’s progress has stagnated since 2021, getting into a part of detrimental progress.
“We’re at some extent the place pension fund directors are largely simply shifting account balances between themselves, with minimal new contributions or significant enlargement into untapped areas,” she defined.
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“That is unsustainable. If we proceed down this path, we threat a system that’s mature but stagnant.”
Oloworaran burdened the urgency of fostering exponential progress, notably by together with the 77 million casual sector employees who’re at the moment underrepresented within the system. At current, fewer than 10,000 of those employees are lively contributors to the CPS.
She additionally underscored the necessity for pension-driven progress that addresses Nigeria’s urgent points notably infrastructure and meals safety.
“We’d like progress that not solely generates actual returns but in addition maintains dignity for retirees,” she said.
Trying globally, Oloworaran cited examples from developed economies, the place pension funds have spurred nationwide growth. In Australia, pension funds have financed main infrastructure tasks, whereas in South Africa, they’ve supported housing initiatives.
“These nations didn’t obtain success by enjoying it secure. They discovered the precise stability between warning and daring methods—safeguarding savers whereas enabling long-term progress. We should observe swimsuit.”
To make a significant influence, Oloworaran recommended that the pension sector may must adapt. She reminded the viewers that the Pension Reform Act duties PenCom with each safeguarding and rising retirement financial savings, a duty that requires lively and daring decision-making. “We should evolve our funding methods, deepen {financial} markets, create revolutionary merchandise, and, crucially, embrace each Nigerian employee no matter their employment standing into the pension system.”
The retreat, she added, gives a useful platform for asking exhausting questions. How can Nigeria finance infrastructure and meals safety with out jeopardizing security and liquidity? How can markets be deepened to accommodate different belongings whereas sustaining fiscal duty? How can know-how and knowledge rework the pension business? And maybe most critically, how can success be measured not simply in financial phrases, however by the influence on folks’s lives?
“The Nigerian pension business holds the important thing to reshaping the nation’s developmental trajectory,” Oloworaran concluded.
