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Prior to the pension reform, the Nigeria pension industry was a coven of roguery, mindless looting, incompetence, with unparalleled hardship, which imposed extreme hardship on senior citizens, who gave their prime to the nation. The old pension scheme or Defined Benefits Scheme (DBS), which promised to pay gratuity and lifelong pensions to retirees was unrealistic dysfunctional. Funds were brazenly embezzled through the ghost pensioners’ syndrome, while the real pensioners died of heartbreak and hardship.
It was, however, during the privatisation of pubic enterprises under former President Olusegun Obasanjo that the stack realities and burdens of the nation’s moribund pension system dawned on the government. Every enterprise the government wanted to sell carried huge baggage of pension liabilities, such that potential investors wanted the pension liabilities taken off or be given the enterprises for chickenfeed. It was at that point that the then DG of the Bureau for Public Enterprises (BPE), Mallam Nasir El-Rufai and Obasanjo, took the initiative that gave birth to the pension reform.
Obasanjo empaneled the Fola Adeola Pension Reform Committee, with Anohu-Amazu as a member. The Committee received ideas from various stakeholders, which it combined with global best practices to come up with a bill that resulted in the Pension Reform Act (PRA) 2004. She received a presidential Letter of Commendation for her service on that committee.
The efficacy of the PRA 2004 showed in lifting the nation’s pension liability from over N2 trillion deficits inherited at the takeoff of the reform; to over N6.5 trillion of assets it boasts of today.
The former president painted a more vivid picture of the role of then Director-General (DG) of the National Pension Commission (PENCOM), Mrs. Chinelo Anohu-Amazu, in pension industry during the World Pension Summit gala event at the Presidential Villa in 2014. He said: “The first lesson I have to draw (from pension reform) is that within and outside Nigeria, there are Nigerians of world class that can do world-class work for Nigerians. All the members of the (Fola Adeola) committee were Nigerians. And the work they produced is of world class. And the way it has been managed is of world-class management. The present DG is one of those that we had to go out to headhunt for. What a man can do, a woman can do better.”
Following the enactment of the Pension Reform Act 2004, Anohu-Amazu was drafted to PenCom to play key roles in translating the letters and spirit of the Act into action. She served as the Commission Secretary and Legal Adviser.
She was later appointed the Acting DG of PenCom in 2012. Among her major achievements were the innovative and strict regulations and enforcements, which saw to the growth of the pension assets from N2.9 trillion, as at her appointment as the Acting DG in 2012 to over N6.5 trillion in 2017.
It is worth stating that the alleged looting in the pension industry, such as the N273 billion looting was restricted to the old pension scheme or Defined Benefit Scheme (DBS). But these could have been curtailed if Section 20 (2)(a) of the Pension Reform Act 2004 (as it was then), which provided for the Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD) had been activated to checkmate the activities of the various Pension Departments.
But who would dare the cabals and their slush funds? Only Anohu-Amazu. One of the major steps she took, as Acting DG, was to recommend to former President Goodluck Jonathan to activate that important provision and appoint an Executive Secretary for PTAD in 2013.
Another key achievement was the successful amendment of the Pension Reform Act in 2014. The PRA 2014, properly establishes PTAD and makes it law to directly transmit the benefits of pensioners under the old scheme to their accounts without the involvement of a third party (the Pension Departments). The Federal Universities Pensioners Association (FUPA) hailed this section of the law as a financial autonomy for pensioners. The body said it “freed suffering pensioners from the heavy yokes of untimely death and massive hardship brought by Pension Departments, as it is the shortest possible journey between us and our money.”
Other major breakthroughs in PRA 2014 include the creation of new offences regime and provisions for stiffer penalties against infractions on pension law or mismanagement or diversion of pension funds and assets under any guise.
Anohu-Amazu met the pension assets at N2.9 trillion in 2012 as Acting DG, but is handing over a N6.5 million assets in 2017. PenCom, under her watch, shored up the Retirement Savings Accounts (RSAs) subscriptions from 5.39 million to 7.4 million within the same period. Her wars against any form of fraudulent practice in the industry were like that of against fake and adulterated drug cartels. It takes a tough regulator to succeed in Nigeria.
Her leadership completed the establishment of PenCom offices in the six geopolitical zones to decentralise PenCom services to Nigerians and save them the stress of toiling to Abuja to have their matters addressed.
Her high-flying performance and global reach helped to open up Nigerian pension industry to the world. In 2014, Nigeria became the first and only African country to host the World Pension Summit (Africa Special). The event, which brought together over 400 professional, investors, and industry stakeholders from five continents, had been additionally hosted by Nigeria in 2015 and 2016 with tremendous impact on the nation’s pension industry and foreign direct investment.
Thrilled by the successes, The World Bank invited her to the 7th Global Pension and Savings Summit in Washington DC to share Nigeria’s pension turnaround story, which it termed: “Nigeria: The Pension Big Bang.” She was one of the select high-level experts from Africa appointed as pioneer members of the prestigious London Stock Exchange’s Africa Advisory Group.
The former PenCom DG did not only give PenCom headquarters a deserving facelift, but also boosted staff morale through capacity building and welfare. The mother in her showed in her conversion of a hitherto redundant building at the headquarters to a world class Crèche/Daycare, where nursing mothers keep their babies, breastfeed and attend to them at break or scheduled intervals to cut down on Nigeria’s child mortality rate.
Little wonder the nation’s pension industry has consistently come tops of the Africa Pension Awards for regulators and operators in recent years. For her efforts, she was conferred with The Sun Public Service Award 2015. Presenting the Award, on behalf of Sun, the All Progressives Congress (APC) leader, Senator Bola Tinubu, said: “Through your commitment to public service, professionalism and attitude to sacrifice for our today and tomorrow in this country, The Sun has rewarded, recognised your commitment and the nation has done the same. I am proud of you and wish you more grease to your elbows.”
Chinelo will be remembered as an amazon, who came, who saw and conquered.
• Mailafia, an economist, wrote from Abuja.
