President Bola Tinubu on Tuesday in Abuja launched the Minimum Pension Guarantee Scheme designed to protect retirees from receiving pensions below a guaranteed minimum.
Tinubu, who was represented by Senate President Godswill Akpabio, also unveiled PenCare aims to offer free health insurance to low-income retirees aged 60 and above who earn monthly pensions of ₦150,000 or less, while assuring that no Nigerian worker who contributed under the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS), should be abandoned to poverty and ill health after retirement.
Speaking at the launch of the Presidential Pension Security Initiatives, Tinubu, said the Minimum Pension Guarantee would take effect immediately and be administered by the National Pension Commission (PenCom) under the Pension Reform Act.
He noted that successive administrations had failed to implement the guarantee despite its inclusion in pension legislation since 2004.
Today, I dare say that lie ends here. By the authority vested in me as President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, I hereby declare the Minimum Pension Guarantee Scheme commenced with effect from today, to be administered by the National Pension Commission under the Pension Reform Act,” he said.
“From this day, a floor within the Nigerian retirement system: no one who contributed under the Contributory Pension Scheme will ever be allowed to fall below. Not because this government is generous, but because it is their right.”
He recalled that Section 71 of the 2004 law promised a baseline payout, and that Sections 82 and 84 of the 2014 revision repeated it and created a fund to pay for it.
He regretted that across 22 years and four administrations, nobody had received a single payout under it.
“Not one naira paid under that guarantee. Not one retiree given a floor. Not one government that stopped to ask what happens to those pensioners when their hospital bills arrive at home,” he said.
He framed the event as part of a wider pledge that people who spent decades in service can stop working with financial stability and medical access. PenCare, he said, targets the health burdens of low earners who often drain their savings on treatment.
“A pension is more than a pay cheque. Ask any Nigerian what finished their father’s pension. It was not food. It was not rent. It was the hospital bill. One illness at 68 years can swallow 40 years of service and leave the children to carry the burden thereafter.”
”A pension that cannot pay for medicine is not a pension. It is a receipt.”
He said the programme would draw its money from sector rules and give needy seniors free basic treatment, with the first access cards due to be handed out within months.
”For the first time in Nigerian history, the Nigerian retiree holds two things at once: an income that cannot fall below the floor and a card that opens the door of a hospital. That is social security.”
The president also defended his economic overhaul, saying ending the fuel subsidy and merging exchange rates were necessary to rebuild the economy and protect the nation’s future.
He said the changes freed money for roads, schooling, lending programmes and clearing old debts to former workers, and that his team floated a ₦458 billion bond to settle overdue amounts.
”We issued a bond of N458 billion and we paid them. I said we did not promise, we paid them.”
He added that a ₦32,000 monthly top-up was approved for federal beneficiaries whose payments sat under the national wage floor. He also cited ex-Nigeria Airways staff, some of whom moved from ₦80,000 to as much as ₦206,000 monthly.
He described upgrades within the contributory system as unprecedented in the country’s history.
Turning to state finances, he said larger federal transfers let governors tackle inherited obligations to their former workers.
Quoting the World Bank, he said state income grew about 93 per cent in real terms from 2023 to 2025, while the share of budgets going to capital works climbed from 46 to 61 per cent, and states together spent over ₦1 trillion clearing backlogs.
”Every governor in this country, whether you like my party or not, now has more to work with than at any other time in the history of our country,” he said, praising states for spending the extra money on infrastructure, schooling and payouts.
He also named other initiatives, namely the Nigerian Education Loan Fund, the National Credit Guarantee Company and the Nigerian Consumer Credit Corporation, meant to widen access to learning, loans and opportunity.
He said over 174,000 borrowers got more than ₦64 billion through the guarantee company, while the consumer lender gave ₦53 billion to above 350,000 people in all 774 local councils. Women make up nearly six in ten recipients and young people nearly half.
He insisted the reforms were already working and urged citizens not to back any rollback.
Aiming at rivals, he challenged ex-officials to explain why they never implemented the baseline payout while in power.
”Do not listen to what they promise you. Promises are free. Look at what they did when they were in power in the past,” he said..
“Which retiree did you guarantee? Which pensioner did you insure? And which floor did you erect at the start?”
He argued that voters should judge leaders by track records instead of campaign talk, and that undoing his changes would erase gains in state income, construction and payouts.
He also cautioned bosses who withhold staff contributions, calling those funds the workers’ own property and security.
”Let them be known and be clear. Remit your workers’ contributions. Every naira you hold is stolen from somebody’s old age. It is not your money,” he warned.
He assured workers that their service would no longer end in uncertainty and urged the young to value saving from the start of their careers.
”To our young people, the pension you begin in your twenties is a dignity you own in your seventies,” he said.
“To every Nigerian worker fighting for this great nation, this country stands behind you. I know that. I see it and I honour your sacrifice. Keep building. The Nigeria you are working for has a promise waiting for you at the end of your service. That promise is the law. From today, it is the law that pays.”
Earlier, the Director General of PenCom, Omolola Oloworaran, said the guarantee aims at over 170,000 people whose monthly payouts fall under ₦52,500 and that each eligible person would be lifted to that level.
She said it spans both government and company employees in the contributory system, not just federal staff.
According to her 54 per cent of those below the threshold come from private employers, and over 65 per cent of private-sector former workers currently get less than ₦52,500. States, however, must pay into the Pension Protection Fund before their residents can benefit, to keep the plan viable.
“We are targeting over 170,000. Every eligible retiree to end below N52,500 will be brought up to N52,500. So, everybody, there’s no discrimination. If you are within the CPS, you will get it”.
She said the commission was designing how states would begin paying in, warning that the scheme needs a steady funding base so it never runs dry.
On PenCare she said “It has been rolled out and Nigerians can now enter into a hospital and enjoy healthcare. What we did today was symbolic, but from today, anybody who doesn’t have their card can go to their Pension Fund Administrator (PFA) and demand for their card,” she said.
