The National Pension Commission has approved a 1,173 per cent increase in pensions for retirees under the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund, ending a 21-year freeze that eroded beneficiaries’ incomes due to inflation.
PenCom’s Director-General, Omolola Oloworaran, disclosed the approval in a statement on Wednesday.
The adjustment affects 2,116 retirees, raising total monthly pension payments from N12.56 million to N159.95 million and significantly improving their welfare.
Some retirees previously earning as little as N18,000 per month will now receive about N206,000 following the adjustment.
PenCom also approved N8.70 billion in pension arrears, averaging roughly N3 million per beneficiary, with some retirees set to receive over N8 million.
According to PenCom, this marks the first pension increase for NSITF beneficiaries since 2005 and corrects long-standing regulatory lapses, noting that the freeze violated legal and constitutional requirements for periodic pension reviews.
“This is the first pension increase for NSITF beneficiaries since 2005, and it is a long-overdue correction of structural injustice within the legacy scheme. The arrears cover years of underpayment caused by regulatory non-compliance and failure to align pensions with economic realities.
“PenCom invoked Section 53 of the Pension Reform Act 2014 to enforce compliance after prolonged violations,” the Director-General added.
PenCom said the approvals signal a clear shift from discretionary goodwill to strict regulatory enforcement based on existing laws.
NSITF retirees were stuck on a frozen pension structure for more than two decades, despite repeated inflation and rising living costs across Nigeria.
Both the Pension Reform Act and the 1999 Constitution require pensions to be reviewed at least every five years or in line with Federal Civil Service salary adjustments.
NSITF policy also mandates that minimum pensions should not fall below 80 per cent of the National Minimum Wage.
However, payments remained unchanged since 2005, widening the gap between retirees’ incomes and economic realities.
The prolonged freeze pushed many private-sector retirees into poverty despite years of service.
PenCom said the failure to review pensions for two decades created a deep structural inequity that required regulatory intervention.
The Commission added that the scale of the increase was made possible by strong growth in the NSITF Fund over the years.
According to PenCom, the fund grew from N54 billion in 2005 to N195 billion by December 2025, driven by prudent management under strict regulatory oversight.
Oloworaran said the action proves that strong governance can deliver both adequate pensions and fiscal discipline.
The move restores dignity to thousands of retirees who suffered over two decades of frozen pensions despite legal guarantees for regular reviews.
With monthly payments rising more than tenfold and arrears cleared, PenCom is reducing old-age poverty among private-sector pensioners and reinforcing compliance with the Pension Reform Act.
