Nigeria’s pension accounts grow, but savings fail to follow

Nigeria’s push to extend pension coverage beyond the formal workforce is producing more registered accounts but far fewer active savers, exposing a wide gap between enrolment and actual retirement savings.

By the end of the first quarter of 2026, 219,316 Retirement Savings Accounts had been registered under the Personal Pension Plan, the scheme designed to bring self-employed Nigerians and informal-sector workers into the contributory pension system.

Yet only 18,811 accounts had received contributions, leaving 200,505, or 91.4 percent, unfunded, according to the National Pension Commission’s first-quarter 2026 industry report.

The funded accounts represented just 8.58 percent of total PPP registrations by March, meaning that for roughly every 12 accounts registered, only one had received a contribution.

The figures point to a problem deeper than the number of Nigerians being brought into the pension system: registration is not translating into sustained savings at the same pace.

The Personal Pension Plan was created to enable self-employed people and workers in the informal sector to participate in Nigeria’s Contributory Pension Scheme and build retirement savings.

Unlike workers whose pension contributions are deducted through payroll, PPP participants make contributions themselves.

The funding gap therefore leaves the pension industry with a harder task than simply getting Nigerians to open accounts. It has to turn those registrations into active and sustained savings.

PPP contributions rose to N147.16 million in the first quarter of 2026 from N103.30 million in the fourth quarter of 2025, an increase of N43.86 million, or 42.46 percent.

Cumulative contributions under the…