PenCom Holds Firm on June 2027 Deadline as PFAs Face Recapitalisation Test
By Patience Ikpeme
The National Pension Commission (PenCom) has reaffirmed that all pension fund administrators (PFAs) and pension fund custodians must complete their recapitalisation by June 30, 2027, as it moves to strengthen the institutions managing Nigerian workers’ retirement savings.
PenCom Director-General, Omolola Oloworaran, stated this in her keynote address at the National Pension Summit, saying the industry’s next phase must focus not only on asset growth but also on institutional strength and the protection of contributors.
“Every pension fund administrator and custodian must complete recapitalization by 30th June 2027. We are not changing our minds,” she said.
Oloworaran said Nigeria’s pension assets had grown from N20.79 trillion in July 2024 to N31.8 trillion by the end of August 2026, but argued that the value of the industry should not be measured by assets alone. “Numbers do not retire. People do,” she said. According to her, the industry must now move from size to strength, ensuring that PFAs and custodians have the capacity to safeguard contributors’ savings and deliver returns that preserve their value in the face of inflation.
“A pension industry that holds the savings of millions must be strong enough to protect them,” she said.
The PenCom DG said the recapitalisation deadline was directly connected to the protection of retirees and their retirement savings. Using the image of a retired headmistress waiting for a payment alert after 35 years of service, she said the central question for many retirees was whether what they had been promised would arrive and whether it would be enough.
“That question is the reason for this summit,” she said.
Oloworaran added that the next major pension reform should be measured by the number of Nigerians protected, rather than only by the amount of money managed by the industry.
She identified pension coverage, adequacy and employer compliance as major gaps that must also be addressed. Although the law provides for a combined contribution of 18 per cent of pay, she said the rate was applied to pensionable earnings, which could represent only a fraction of a worker’s total income.
This has left many private-sector workers retiring with benefits that are insufficient to meet their basic needs. “Being in the system is not enough. The system must be able to hold you up,” she said, while challenging pension operators to deliver investment returns that beat inflation. “Beating inflation is not an aspiration. It is your job,” she added.
Oloworaran also urged PFAs to expand pension coverage beyond formal-sector employees by reaching traders, artisans, farmers, entrepreneurs and other workers outside the traditional payroll system. She said PenCom had asked the industry to deliver three million additional funded active accounts within one year through personal pension plans, accredited agents and digital onboarding. “An empty account is a statistic, but a funded account is a future,” she said.
At the same time, she cautioned that pension funds remained the deferred wages of Nigerian workers and must be managed primarily in the interests of contributors.
