About nine in every 10 Nigerian adults remain outside any formal pension arrangement despite a modest increase in pension coverage over the past three years, the latest Access to Financial Services in Nigeria (A2F) Survey has revealed.
The survey showed that pension coverage rose from 7.8 per cent of the adult population in 2023 to 9.1 per cent in 2026, making pensions one of the least-used formal financial products in the country.
Omolola Oloworaran, Director-General of the National Pension Commission (PenCom), disclosed the figures on Wednesday at the official launch of the 2026 A2F Survey in Abuja.
She said the increase was encouraging but highlighted the scale of the retirement security challenge facing millions of Nigerians.
“Pension participation has risen from 7.8 per cent of adults in 2023 to 9.1 per cent in 2026. That progress is real, and it is encouraging. But turn the statistics around. Roughly nine out of every 10 Nigerian adults still stand outside any formal pension arrangement,” Oloworaran said.
She said millions of Nigerians working as traders, farmers, mechanics, drivers, tailors, hairdressers and in the digital economy earn incomes without building adequate financial protection for retirement.
“They work, they earn, they carry this economy. But too many of them are growing older without building any security for the day they can no longer work. That is the great frontier of pension reform,” she added.
According to the PenCom boss, financial inclusion should go beyond providing Nigerians with access to bank accounts and payment services to include financial products that offer long-term security.
She said pensions were particularly important because they link income earned during a person’s working years with their welfare after retirement.
Oloworaran said PenCom was redesigning pension inclusion through the Personal Pension Plan, while calling for a dedicated model that would identify the factors that encourage workers in the informal economy to save consistently for retirement.
She also proposed a pension inclusion map that would combine EFInA’s survey findings with PenCom’s regulatory and industry data.
The proposed map would identify pension coverage gaps by geography, gender, age, occupation and income, helping to show where workers remain excluded from formal retirement savings.
“As we roll out the Personal Pension Plan, I invite EFInA to work with PenCom and the industry to test what works, from digital onboarding to accredited pension agent distribution framework, transaction-based savings, matching incentives and behavioural models,” she said.
Oloworaran, however, said increasing the number of pension accounts alone would not guarantee retirement security if workers did not contribute regularly.
“An account that is open but never funded will not provide dignity in retirement. One true measure of success is whether Nigerians are saving consistently and accumulating enough to live on when they can no longer work,” she said.
Coverage remains low across income groups
Foyinsolami Akinjayeju, Chief Executive Officer of Enhancing Financial Innovation and Access (EFInA), said pension penetration remained weak across demographic groups despite broader improvements in access to financial services.
She said pension coverage stood at about nine per cent nationally, increasing to 12 per cent among urban residents and 13 per cent among the richest 60 per cent of the population.
The figures indicate that pension coverage remains low even among groups with greater access to formal financial services.
The 2026 A2F Survey was conducted between April and June 2026 under the supervision of the National Bureau of Statistics and covered 18,679 adults aged 18 and above across Nigeria’s 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory.
EFInA said the survey achieved about 98 per cent of its targeted sample of 18,950 respondents.
The findings place the scale of pension exclusion in sharp focus, with the overwhelming majority of Nigerian adults still without formal arrangements to build income for the period when they can no longer work.
