The Federal Government has cleared inherited pension liabilities dating back to 2007 through a N758 billion intervention bond, according to the National Pension Commission (PenCom).
PenCom Director-General, Omolola Oloworaran, disclosed this on Tuesday in Lagos while delivering the keynote address at the 2026 PenCom Media Conference.
Oloworaran said the intervention had addressed outstanding pension obligations affecting 957,045 beneficiaries, describing the development as a significant step towards resolving long-standing pension backlogs.
She said the Federal Government had settled liabilities inherited across successive administrations, adding that the move demonstrated a commitment to fulfilling pension obligations to retired workers.
PenCom also disclosed that accrued pension rights for federal employees scheduled to retire up to December 2029 had been credited to their Retirement Savings Accounts following a one-time verification and enrolment exercise.
To prevent fresh backlogs, the commission said it had introduced a Zero Waiting Time Policy aimed at aligning retirement benefit payments with monthly public service salary cycles.
According to PenCom, the policy has helped reduce benefit processing time from as much as 21 months to 48 hours.
The commission also highlighted reforms affecting retirees of the defunct Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund. It said a 21-year review of their payments resulted in an average 1,173 per cent increase for 2,116 retirees, alongside the payment of N8.7 billion in arrears.
Under the Pension Boost 1.0 initiative, monthly payments under the Contributory Pension Scheme were also increased from N12.15 billion to N14.83 billion, benefiting more than 241,000 retirees nationwide.
Oloworaran said the effectiveness of pension reforms should be measured not only by how workers are treated during their years of service but also by how reliably their benefits are paid after retirement.
PenCom further announced plans to introduce the PenCare free healthcare programme, which will initially target 30,000 low-income retirees.
Other planned initiatives include the activation of a statutory Minimum Pension Guarantee and the expansion of the Micro Pension Plan to informal-sector workers, including traders and artisans, through a nationwide agent network.
