In Nigeria, retirement is not rest. It is punishment.

The average pensioner is not resting. He is waiting—waiting to be verified, waiting to be paid, waiting to die. While ministers retire into ambassadorial postings and lawmakers collect ₦500 million in severance for four years of theft, civil servants are handed silence, bureaucracy, and starvation.

But this rot is no accident. It is a design. It is the outcome of neoliberal ideology, crafted by global institutions and implemented by a comprador elite more loyal to foreign creditors than to their own people.

Comparing Nigeria vs the World
South Africa runs a non-contributory old age grant: every citizen above 60 gets a monthly pension, regardless of work history. It’s about R2,090 per month (₦184,000). More importantly, the poor are not excluded, and corruption is minimal due to biometric verification and strict auditing. Retirement is treated as a social right—not a political bribe. South African pensioners do not beg.

Ghana, often mocked by Nigeria’s ruling class, runs a three-tier scheme: mandatory state-managed pensions, employer-based contributions, and private savings. The National Pensions Regulatory Authority (NPRA) enforces compliance, and digitized identity tracking prevents ghost retirees. Unlike Nigeria, Ghana pays retirees without headlines, tears, or protests. Ghanian pensioners do not beg.

The UK’s pension system is state-backed, mandatory, and layered. A national pension scheme guarantees retirees a base income indexed to inflation, with private pensions and occupational schemes topping it up. Payments arrive monthly, tied to national insurance contributions. The age is clear. The process is digital. British pensioners do not beg.

But Nigerian pensioners do.

Now to Nigeria—the self-proclaimed “Giant of Africa.” Here, the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) is a tragicomedy: Workers contribute religiously. Government remits selectively. Pension funds are invested, but transparency is nil. Pensioners queue under the sun like beggars, only to die before payment. Politicians loot from pension accounts—Maina stole ₦2 billion, walked free for years.

And what of the PenCom? A bloated agency that watches the heist happen. Politicians treat the pension fund as a campaign chest and slush fund for cronies. PenCom executives drive luxury SUVs to retirement reform “conferences.”

Even the National Assembly has exempted itself from key provisions of the contributory scheme—proof that even the thieves do not trust the vault they’ve built.

Only in Nigeria does the pension system become a crime scene. Workers contribute religiously; government defaults with impunity.
Pension funds swell with over ₦17 trillion in assets, but retirees beg to be paid. Ghost names abound. Verification exercises are rituals of humiliation.
And still—no consequences. Only commissions. Only conferences. Only corruption.

Enter the Neoliberal Gospel
The Nigerian pension system was reformed in 2004 under the guidance of the World Bank and IMF technocrats. The pitch? Efficiency. Private management. Market-based returns.
The result? A system where human lives are reduced to portfolios—and the state absolves itself of responsibility.

The CPS (Contributory Pension Scheme) was built not to serve pensioners but to serve capital. The logic was simple: take workers’ money, give it to fund managers and banks, let them invest it in private sector profit. The state, under this logic, became an enabler of profit, not a guarantor of justice.

Who benefits? The comprador elite—Nigerians in suits, in agbadas and Babban riga with funny caps, who act as brokers for international capital, siphoning returns, charging consultancy fees, and using pension funds as collateral for speculative ventures.

And when there’s scandal—like Abdulrasheed Maina’s ₦2 billion heist—they close the file, sack a scapegoat, and move on. Meanwhile, the pensioner dies waiting.

This is a Class Question. This is a Class War
This is not a “reform challenge.” It is deliberate economic violence. It is the transfer of public wealth into private hands under the disguise of efficiency.
It is a betrayal by those who were never loyal to the Nigerian worker in the first place.

The Nigerian pension system, like its roads, hospitals, and schools, is proof: the state exists not to serve, but to extract. Not to care, but to control.

Pension failure is not technical. It is political. It is class war. It is the system telling the working poor: we used you, now die quietly.

At MediaPulse, we reject this. Retirement is not a favor. It is a right. Those who built the nation must not be discarded by it.

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