PenCom targets 95m youths, artisans with personal pensions

The National Pension Commission (PenCom) has launched its inaugural National Pension Week 2026, with a focus on engaging Nigeria's 95 million young citizens in personal pension planning. At the youth engagement session titled 'Hustle and Your Future: Planning Starts Now', PenCom Director-General, Ms. Omolola Oloworaran, emphasized the importance of early financial planning for Nigeria's retirement security.

According to Oloworaran, young people under 35 years of age account for roughly 40% of Nigeria's population, making their inclusion in retirement planning crucial for long-term economic stability. She highlighted that modern career paths often require a dynamic retirement structure, contrasting this with the outdated pension system designed for standard 35-year office careers.

Oloworaran assured participants that the new approach is designed to accommodate diverse work models, urging freelancers, tech professionals, artisans, and content creators to participate in personal pension contributions regardless of their employment status. She illustrated the benefits of early savings using two hypothetical savers, Tolu and Emeka.

Tolu, who starts saving N10,000 monthly at age 20, accumulates over N113 million by age 60 with a conservative 10% return rate, while Emeka, starting the same contribution at age 40, only accumulates N13 million.

The Director-General emphasized that Tolu's success is not due to higher earnings or harder work, but rather starting to save earlier. She stressed the power of compound interest over time, urging young citizens to leverage time as their greatest asset. Despite immediate economic pressures, Oloworaran encouraged young people to prioritize their financial future, stating, "Enjoy the soft life like I like to do myself. Just do not let today's soft life become tomorrow's hard life."

To accelerate adoption across Nigeria, PenCom is driving digital transformation among pension fund administrators and custodians to match the fast-paced digital habits of the younger demographic. The regulator urged industry operators to eliminate operational friction and streamline customer onboarding processes across all channels, emphasizing that opening a pension account should not take more than a day.