The National Pension Commission (PenCom) will, within the next three months, introduce a Minimum Pension Guarantee (MPG) and a health insurance scheme for low-income retirees, marking a significant expansion of Nigeria’s retirement protection framework.
Omolola Oloworaran, PenCom’s Director-General announced the initiative in Abuja while presenting the commission’s scorecard under President Bola Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda.
She said the reforms are designed to strengthen retirement security by ensuring that pensioners not only receive regular income but also have access to affordable healthcare.
According to Oloworaran, the Minimum Pension Guarantee will establish an income floor for retirees under the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS), ensuring that no pensioner earns below a prescribed minimum amount in retirement.
The initiative will complement PenCare, a proposed programme that will provide free health insurance for retirees aged 60 years and above who receive monthly pensions of N150,000 or less.
The pilot phase is expected to cover about 30,000 retirees before the programme is expanded nationwide.
“Retirement security should go beyond monthly pension payments to include access to healthcare and protection from poverty in old age,” Oloworaran said.
The PenCom boss also disclosed that pension assets under management have increased by 51 per cent over the past two years, rising from N20.79 trillion in July 2024 to N31.48 trillion as of July 10, 2026.
The growth represents an additional N10.7 trillion in retirement savings.
She added that membership of the Contributory Pension Scheme grew by 938,229 contributors during the same period, bringing total enrolment to more than 11.3 million Nigerians.
PenCom has also introduced reforms to improve benefit administration.
According to Oloworaran, Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs) are now required to approve retirement benefit applications within 48 hours, while the number of retirees receiving pension benefits has increased from 658,811 to 819,411.
She attributed much of the progress to the Federal Government’s N758 billion pension bond, which resolved outstanding pension liabilities dating back to 2007.
The intervention, she said, provided:
- N387.5 billion for pension increases;
- N253 billion for accrued pension rights;
- N107 billion for the Pension Protection Fund; and
- N10 billion for university professors’ retirement benefits.
Overall, about 957,045 Nigerians benefited from the intervention.
Oloworaran also announced that PenCom had cleared N8.7 billion in pension arrears owed to 2,116 retirees under the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF).
She said the payments resulted in significant increases in monthly pensions for affected retirees, many of whom had gone more than two decades without any pension review.
Beyond improving benefits for existing retirees, PenCom is also working to expand pension coverage among workers in the informal sector through the Personal Pension Plan.
The commission is developing a nationwide network of Accredited Pension Agents to deepen pension enrolment while creating employment opportunities.
In addition, PenCom is designing new investment frameworks that will channel long-term pension funds into infrastructure, healthcare, education, agriculture and other productive sectors without compromising contributors’ returns.
The planned rollout of the Minimum Pension Guarantee and PenCare represents one of the most significant reforms to Nigeria’s pension system in recent years, aimed at improving retirees’ quality of life through enhanced income security and access to healthcare.
