The Coalition of Federal Pensioners of Nigeria has announced plans for a nationwide protest on Dec. 8, saying the demonstration is intended to draw attention to the federal government’s failure to release long-delayed pension increments and palliative allowances owed to its members.
In a statement issued Friday in Lagos, Mukaila Ogunbote, the coalition’s national chairman and head of the Nigeria Union of Pensioners’ NIPOST chapter, said the group had exhausted conventional channels of engagement with government ministries and was now turning to public action to press its case.
The protest, he said, would proceed unless the government releases arrears tied to a N32,000 pension increase and a N25,000 palliative allowance approved in 2023.
According to Ogunbote, pensioners have grown increasingly frustrated with what they view as prolonged inaction by the Federal Ministry of Finance and the Office of the Accountant General.
“These institutions are not taking us seriously,” he said, urging retirees across the country to participate in the demonstrations. The coalition maintains that many of its members, some elderly and in vulnerable health, have been left in financial distress as a result of the delayed payments.
The planned protest is expected to take place in Abuja, Lagos and state capitals nationwide. Demonstrations will be held in front of the Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD) offices, which oversee federal pension administration, as well as at several Nigeria Television Authority (NTA) stations. The coalition said these locations were chosen to ensure visibility and to highlight what it considers a lack of accountability in the pension system.
Ogunbote called on state chapter leaders and affiliated unions to fully mobilize their members, emphasizing the need for a unified nationwide display of dissatisfaction. He said the coalition’s message is intended to show the economic hardship faced by retirees and the urgency of the government’s intervention.
“We must show the wound that our clothes are covering,” he said, invoking a metaphor intended to convey the depth of the pensioners’ struggles.
He added that the demonstrations would continue until retirees receive alerts confirming the payment of the outstanding allowances. Pensioners who may be unable to travel long distances, he suggested, should come prepared to remain at the protest sites for extended periods.
The coalition’s grievances come against the backdrop of recent steps by the government to improve pension administration. In September, Naijaonpoint reported that PTAD had begun implementing new pension increments for retirees under the Defined Benefit Scheme following the federal government’s partial release of N20.188 billion.
The adjustment included a flat-rate addition of N32,000 and percentage increases of 10.66 percent and 12.95%, reflecting in the September 2025 payroll cycle. PTAD said the revisions followed President Bola Tinubu’s approval of an emergency budget allocation to support updated pension rates.
In a separate development reported in November, the National Pension Commission (PenCom) disclosed that more than 552,000 retirees under the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) are now receiving regular monthly payments.
PenCom also announced that total pension assets have surpassed N25 trillion, showing both the scale of Nigeria’s retirement system and its growing role in national financial planning. The Commission’s director-general, Omolola Oloworaran, shared the update during a sensitization workshop in Yola focused on educating employees and pensioners in the North-East.