Nigeria’s pension fund assets have risen by 17% to N26.66 trillion in the first 10 months of 2025, driven by increased contributions and investment income.
The growth in pension fund assets is attributed to increased contributions from employers and employees, as well as investment income from fixed income securities, equities, and mutual funds.
Retirement Savings Account (RSA) membership has also grown to 10.97 million as of October 31, 2025, with the National Pension Commission (PenCom) intensifying efforts to bring more employers on board.
To protect contributors’ funds from economic instability, PenCom is reviewing regulations to diversify investments into: inflation-protected instruments, Alternative assets and Foreign-currency-denominated investments.
Despite progress, 73.1 million workers in Nigeria’s public and private sectors remain unenrolled in the pension scheme. Stakeholders are calling for increased advocacy and enforcement of the Pension Reforms Act (PRA) 2014 to reduce defaulters.
PenCom has tweaked the pension industry investment guidelines to allow Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs) to invest in infrastructure and private equities.The Micro Pension Plan has been renamed Personal Pension Plan to widen its adoption among entrepreneurs.
“We are committed to ensuring that pension contributors get good returns on investment of their contributions while the pension assets can now give real returns in terms of economic impacts,” said director-general of PenCom, Ms. Omolola Oloworaran.
“There is need for increased advocacy to convince employers on the need to bring their employees on board, calling for intensified enforcement of the PRA 2014, to reduce the rate of defaulters, so that, workers have rest of mind at retirement, knowingful well that there is a fund somewhere to cater for them in their post-work years,” said pension industry stakeholders.
