The presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) and former Vice President of Nigeria, Atiku Abubakar, has dismissed President Bola Tinubu recent comments linking Nigeria’s pension backlog to the Obasanjo/Atiku administration, describing the remarks as “unnecessary ghosting” and political distraction.
In a statement issued Friday by the Atiku Media Office, the former vice president responded to comments Tinubu reportedly made while addressing northern political stakeholders led by Borno State Governor, Prof. Babagana Zulum, in which the President attributed the country’s pension problems to the administration that left office nearly two decades ago.
“Government is a continuum. The present helmsmen cannot continue to waste valuable national time and resources on ghosting and blaming past administrations. A successor must inherit assets and liabilities,” Atiku said, urging Tinubu and the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to “seek more knowledge about good governance and developmental communication.”
The statement recalled that when the Obasanjo/Atiku administration took office in 1999, it inherited a fragmented and largely unfunded Defined Benefit Scheme (DBS) with an estimated pension liability deficit exceeding N2trillion, about a quarter of the nation’s GDP at the time.
The old system, it noted, depended on annual budget allocations that were routinely unfunded, leading to arrears, ghost pensioners, and administrative bottlenecks.
According to the statement, rather than blaming previous governments, the Obasanjo/Atiku administration worked to overhaul the system, culminating in the Pension Reform Act of 2004.
The law established a Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) requiring both the employers and employees to remit a share of salaries into individual Retirement Savings Accounts (RSAs), created the National Pension Commission (PenCom) to regulate the sector.
The reforms, the statement added, also introduced licensed Pension Fund Administrators and Pension Fund Custodians to manage and safeguard contributions, laying the foundation for pension assets that have since grown into tens of trillions of naira.
The Atiku camp argued that the current administration should build on this framework rather than attribute existing challenges to its architects, adding that Tinubu should focus on strengthening the system “and not quarreling with his tools like a bad farmer.”
