Former Vice President and presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress, Atiku Abubakar, has criticised President Bola Tinubu over comments linking the country's pension challenges to the administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo.
The position was contained in a statement issued on Friday by the Atiku Media Office, which accused the Tinubu administration of blaming previous governments instead of addressing the nation's pressing challenges.
The statement described the President's remarks as an attempt to shift responsibility, insisting that governance is a continuous process in which successive administrations inherit both the achievements and liabilities of their predecessors.
According to the media office, the Obasanjo administration inherited an underfunded and inefficient pension system in 1999 but introduced sweeping reforms that transformed the sector.
It said the administration enacted the Pension Reform Act of 2004, established the National Pension Commission and introduced the Contributory Pension Scheme, replacing the old Defined Benefits Scheme that had been plagued by funding gaps, bureaucratic bottlenecks and widespread irregularities.
The statement added that the reforms also introduced Retirement Savings Accounts for workers and licensed private Pension Fund Administrators and Pension Fund Custodians to manage pension assets under regulatory oversight.
The Atiku Media Office argued that the reforms laid the foundation for Nigeria's current pension system and helped curb the accumulation of unfunded pension liabilities.
It further claimed that the Obasanjo administration also implemented broader economic reforms, including debt relief and policies that encouraged investment in key sectors such as banking, telecommunications and infrastructure.
The former Vice President urged Tinubu to focus on addressing current economic and security challenges confronting Nigerians, including inflation, unemployment, insecurity and the rising cost of living, rather than attributing present governance problems to administrations that left office nearly two decades ago.
President Tinubu had reportedly blamed the country's lingering pension backlog on previous administrations while addressing a delegation of political stakeholders from the North-East led by Borno State Governor, Babagana Zulum.
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