₦4.57bn Pension Funds Recovered From Defaulting Employers in 5 Quarters

The National Pension Commission (PenCom) has recovered ₦4.57 billion from defaulting employers between the first quarter of 2024 and the first quarter of 2025.

Chief Executive Officer of the Pension Fund Operators Association of Nigeria (PenOp), Mr. Oguche Agudah, disclosed this in an interview with the Voice of the people (VOP) on Tuesday in Lagos.

Agudah explained that the recovered sum comprised ₦2.12 billion in outstanding pension contributions and ₦2.45 billion in penalties. The enforcement exercise, he said, targeted 138 employers found guilty of failing to remit workers’ pension contributions.

“This is evidence that enforcement continues to safeguard workers’ retirement savings. But beyond episodic crackdowns, the focus is shifting to durable prevention — tightening real-time remittance monitoring, escalating sanctions for chronic defaulters, and deepening employer education to reduce repeat offences,” he said.

He emphasised that the ultimate goal was not just recovery headlines but a more predictable Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) built on fewer defaults and faster remittances.

Agudah reminded workers that by law, all employers with three or more staff must remit pensions on behalf of employees, while whistleblowing mechanisms exist for reporting non-compliance.

A breakdown of the recoveries showed that the highest enforcement gains were recorded in Q1 2024, with ₦751.51 million in contributions and ₦1.44 billion in penalties recovered. Although the figures dipped in mid-2024, recoveries rose again in Q4 and rebounded strongly in Q1 2025.

According to him, the first quarter of 2025 was not the peak in overall recoveries but posted the strongest principal contribution, with an average of ₦71 million recovered per employer compared to ₦63 million per employer in Q1 2024.

Agudah said the trend reflected ongoing efforts to tackle more significant cases while the number of defaulting employers continued to decline.