84.9m informal workers face retirement without safety net

By Victor Ahiuma-Young
The National Pension Commission, PenCom, is stepping up efforts to expand pension coverage among Nigeria’s self-employed and informal sector workers, as an estimated 84.9 million people remain without pension coverage, exposing a significant gap in the country’s retirement security system.
Figures presented at the 2026 Annual PenCom Media Conference in in Lagos, showed that although the informal sector accounts for an estimated 93 per cent of Nigeria’s workforce, only 242,690 informal sector workers had enrolled in the Personal Pension Plan, PPP, as of July 2026.
The figures, based on estimates of the informal sector workforce, put pension coverage among the g...