OGUN GOVERNMENT’S FAIL TO REMIT PENSION DEDUCTIONS FOR MORE THAN 18 YEARS!
OVER N83BN NOT PAID IN MORE THAN 18 YEARS!
By Eko John Nicholas
If there’s any policy that enjoys absolute agreements among successive governments in Ogun state from 2003 till date (Gbenga Daniel, Ibikunle Amosu and Dapo Abiodun) despite touted rivalries and conflicts of interest, it is their callous and inhuman treatment of the state public sector workers. This is vividly reflected in their obstinate, undemocratic and tyrannical refusal to remit unpaid workers’ contributory pension deductions, now well above N83bn in over 18 years. It is still running!
According to the Ogun State Pension Reform Law of 2006(as amended in 2013), a 7.5percent contribution, under the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS), is to be deducted from employees’ monthly salaries, while the employer (government) is to also contribute 7.5 percent counterpart funding. All is to be paid into individual employee’s Retirement Saving Accounts (RSAs) domiciled with their chosen Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs). Sadly, while successive governments since 2008 including the present one have religiously deducted the stated 7.5percent from workers’ salaries every month, they failed to remit these same workers’ deductions and the government’s counterpart funding of 7.5percent to the employees’ Retirement Savings Accounts (RSAs) as mandated by the pension law. Only 34 out of more than 204 monthly contributions were said have been remitted by the government since the scheme’s inception!
On many occasions, workers have embarked on strikes to demand remittances of these unpaid deductions from their salaries by the governments’. The latest being under the present government in July 2025. Pathetically, nor of these struggles has yielded the desired results. At, best, they only won a few fleeting concessions from the governments. This is partly because the labor leaders are always deceived by governments’ pledges to grant concessions through the signing of Memorandum of Understanding (MoU)/Memorandum of Actions (MoA), which it never honors nor is intended to honor. Besides, the union leaders have not demonstrated a consistent courage to sustain the struggle and pose independent working-class solutions in resolving the seemingly intractable impasse. These would include but not limited to the demand that all accounts books and financial records of the state government be opened for an open examination by a democratically constituted panel made up of relevant professionals, workers, civil society groups and socialists to determine the financial standings of the state, including what happened to the deducted contributory pension funds of workers. In any case given the opulent lifestyle of the top government functionaries, we believe the problem is not lack of fund to fulfil the pension obligation to workers.
It should be recalled that the MoA signed on 21st July, 2025, that led to the suspension of the last strike embarked upon by the workers, However, typical of corrupt capitalist governments in a neo colonial country like Nigeria, the Dapo Abiodun government would rather embark on searching for sands in the desert than honor the agreement his government willingly entered into with the state public sector workers’ completely. Despite the fact that workers’ monthly contributions were being deducted from their salaries, the government had insisted on revalidation and re-capturing of their data. However, at the end of the exercise, it was said that over 45percent of the workers couldn’t complete their revalidation of data due to duplications of data; inaccurate data capturing; multiple/double Personal Identification Number (PIN) assigned to more than one personnel; Lack of, or No PIN at all; misplacement of, or total loss of name/Identity, among others. The question for the Dapo Abiodun’s government is: which database has it been using to deduct the unremitted Contributory Pension fund from Workers’ salaries all this while?
In addition to this, the government has also shown that its pledge for full implementation of the OGSPFL (pension law) can’t be trusted especially in the adherence to the dictates of the law that, “remittance of pension deduction to PFAs must be remitted not later than a maximum of seven (7) days after payment of monthly salary.” The recent payments fell short of this of this provision. Again, workers have also raised eyebrows concerning item V(a) in the MoA as mentioned above, considering the timeframe for the execution of the tasks, and the insincerity therein on the part of the government. Ironically, while the government hasn’t fulfilled its own part of the signed agreement with the workers, by paying the deducted arrears owe them, it has gone ahead to fully implemented the CPS.
From the foregoing, it is clear that government is only trying to buy time, by setting up the PFMC, though enabled by the OGSPFL as amended, even when previous Committee reports set up by the same government never saw the light of the day. Almost five months into the signed MoA, the PFMC said: “it has received approval for the remittance of accrued pension rights to the Retirement Savings Accounts (RSA) of both retirees and serving officers employed as of December 31, 2007, covering a total of 24,267 state and local government workers. We have also received approval for the remittance of arrears of CPS deductions for the 1st phase (2nd July, 2025 to 1st July, 2030) covering 3,910 state workers and 3,666 LG and SUBEB staff. Approval has equally been granted for the payment/remittance of the Return on Investment (ROI) on the outstanding deductions. It has also received approval for the remittance of the death benefits of 283 deceased state workers and 69 LG and SUBEB employees. It has secured payment of palliative to retired and impending retirees covering the period from July 2nd to December 31st, 2025” ( Punch Newspaper, November 8th, 2025).
These purported approvals notwithstanding, workers’ and retirees are yet to receive any payments. The cases of the retirees are most pathetic. Many of them after serving for 35 years, have nothing to show as retirement benefits from the government, save for the monthly pittance, that can hardly feed them. Some have died of preventable ailments, and the sick ones can’t access health care due to paucity of funds. Many now live in wants and misery. Yet, this is happening in a state, which is third in the IGR generation by states and with billions received from the federation accounts monthly. The accrued resources are not invested in the social sectors either. Education remains largely underfunded, as school fees in tertiary institutions are prohibitive especially for workers and poor majority; healthcare facilities are begging for funds, mass housing schemes are either absent or grossly inadequate; insecurity is increasingly plaguing communities across the state; roads across the state are in disrepairs; agriculture is not being given the required attention; among others.
From the foregoing, it’s clear that these pledges and touted approvals by the Dapo Abiodun government, are more of motions without movement. In other words, to resolve these unremitted arrears of the contributory workers’ deductions and ensure same are paid to the RSAs, and the retirees receive their entitlements, the workers must be prepared going forward to take their destiny into their own hand. This would entail waging consistent struggle and resistance through mass actions to compel the government to accedes to workers demands and pay them their legitimate earnings. The Ogun state public sector workers can’t continue to beg for what ordinarily should be their inalienable rights. Every labourer deserves their wages. Enough is enough!
We call on the organized labour union leaders in Ogun state to declare a-24hrs warning strike, as a first step, to demand that the government commences payments of unremitted deductions made from contributory pension, cooperatives etc. The national headquarters of the NLC and TUC, civil society organizations like JAF (Joint action Front) socialists and lovers of justice should intervene in the plight of Ogun workers. Ultimately, all these should be linked with the need for a consistent struggle against all anti-poor policies of the government in Ogun and nationally and the establishment of a working people political alternative party. Such a party must implement socialist programmes and policies that would meet the needs of the vast majority as against the greed of a few political office holders and their business collaborators.