Civil and public servants across Ogun State and its local government have announced plans to suspend their services over the non remittance of the contributory pension funds.
The suspension of work would take full effect from 12pm on Tuesday, 15 July, 2025.
This was contained in a letter written to the state governor, Dapo Abiodun, jointly signed by the state chapter of the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, Trade Union Congress, TUC, and the Joint Negotiation Committee, JNC, with a copy made available to newsmen on Monday, in Abeokuta the state capital.
According to the letter, the decision was made from an emergency statewide congress meeting held earlier today.
Salient Times reports that the workers under the auspices of Organized Labour had demanded the suspension of the state pension reform law, insisting that it has failed in its objective and successive government in the past 17 years have failed to remit contributing pension funds.
They disclosed that the government is owing an accumulated contributing pension of N82bn, adding that despite several efforts, the state governor, Dapo Abiodun, had remained silent on the issue.
The workers asserted that the contributing pension scheme has been a drain of resources for the workers, and a wage lowering tactic for successive governments of the state.
The letter reads, “Declaration of Trade Dispute by Ogun State Government Workers; Arising from the emergency Statewide Congress meeting that held today, Monday, 14th July, 2025, the entire Civil/Public Servants of the State and of the Local Governments voted to indefinitely suspend their services over the dysfunctional Ogun State Pension Reform Law [OGSPRL] 2008, amended 2013 which established a Contributory Pension Scheme, [CPS] where both the employer and the employee set aside monthly savings towards the latter’s retirement.
“Practically, in its seventeen years of passage as a law, from all indicators, the CPS has, at best, being practiced in complete breach of the OGSPRL 2008. Accessible records on it established the Incontrovertible fact that it has rather been a drain of resources for the workers, and curiously, a wage lowering tactic for successive governments of the State.
“ Only 34 months (that is 3 years less of 2 months) of the expected 204 months (17 years) of the deductions from both sides, l.e. the State/Local Governments were remitted to the Pension Funds Administrators. In the last 14 years, and still counting, monthly deductions only from workers salaries have been diligently consistent without remittance to their PFAst The statue-prescribed Investments of the funds, the interests it could have yielded amongst other associated benefits are all in limbol It simply translated to the apparent shortchanging of the entirety of active and dedicated workers of the state over the years.
”We recall the widely publicised Adekunte Hassan Pension Heform Comittee set up back in 2022. Neither its findings nor recommendations were released nor was there any definitive concrete step taken to address the issue, countless correspondences on it were written and delivered to the state authortles with no single response.
“Suffice that workers unanimously demanded for outright cancellation of the shortchanging scheme which, according to its amended version, have come into full effect on Ist July, 2025. In clear terms, the indefinite suspension of services across the state and Local Governments takes full effect from 12am, Tresday 15 July, 2025” the letter concluded.
