The presidential flag bearer of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) and former Vice President of Nigeria, Atiku Abubakar, has waved off the recent insinuation and innuendo by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in respect of Federal Government Pension backlog, as unnecessary ghosting and futile political shadow chasing by an inept APC-led administration.
The Atiku Media Office in a response on Friday described as untenable frivolity the disguised brickbat by the President to visiting Northeast political stakeholders led by Governor Babagana Zulum, where he blamed pension problems in the country on the Obasanjo/Atiku government that left office almost two decades before his.
“Both President Tinubu and his inept APC administration should seek more knowledge about good governance and developmental communication. 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 insisted.
It reminded that when President Olusegun Obasanjo/Atiku Abubakar took office in 1999, they inherited a broken, unfunded, and non-contributory Defined Benefits Scheme (DBS) that had accumulated an unsustainable pension liability deficit estimated at over ₦2 trillion (about 25% of the country’s GDP at the time). They did not embark on calling out their predecessors but rolled their sleeves to turn around the situation.
“But by the time Obasanjo/Atiku left office in 2007, their administration had completely revolutionized the sector by enacting the Pension Reform Act of 2004, leaving behind a fully funded, privately managed Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) regulated by the newly established National Pension Commission (PenCom).”
As could be recalled, the old Pay-As-You-Go model relied purely on annual budgetary allocations, which were severely underfunded and generated massive arrear backlogs.
The pension administration preceding the Obasanjo/Atiku era was highly fragmented across various government agencies, plagued by ghost pensioners, data inaccuracies, and severe bureaucratic delays.
Recall that many private sector employees completely lacked pension coverage, and the few existing schemes were mismanaged or entirely unfunded.
But when the Obasanjo/Atiku administration left office in 2007, it was to their credit and benefit of pensioners that they left behind the Pension Reform Act (PRA) 2004, a landmark law modeled after international best practices which completely overhauled the country’s retirement architecture.
The Obasanjo/Atiku administration introduced a mandatory system where both employers and employees contribute a minimum percentage of basic salary into individual Retirement Savings Accounts (RSAs).
It was mischievous of Tinubu not to acknowledge that the Obasanjo/Atiku government left behind a robust regulatory authority, the National Pension Commission (PenCom), to supervise the sector and shield it from political interference.
“They institutionalized the use of private Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs) to invest funds and Pension Fund Custodians (PFCs) to warehouse assets safely.
“By shifting future liabilities to a fully funded framework, their reforms stopped the accumulation of new un-backed state debts. This foundation laid the groundwork for Nigeria’s modern pension assets, which have since ballooned into tens of trillions of naira.”
This is what Tinubu should be building upon and not quarrelling with his tools like a bad farmer, Atiku advised.
It is also on record that the Obasanjo/Atiku administration laid the foundation for the liberalization and globalization of the Nigerian economy, by paying off all foreign loans, creating conducive environments for business and infrastructure developments in banking, telecommunication, hospitality and other sectors.
“Tinubu should focus on resetting the salient issues of hunger and anger in the land, mostly caused by unabated insecurity, alarming mass youth unemployment, broken-down economy, strangulating social environment and wanton destruction of the nation’s political fabrics,” Atiku advised.
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