On Tuesday, July 15, at 12:00 a.m., workers in Ogun State began an indefinite strike, citing injustice and non-compliance with the State’s Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS).
The joint leadership of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Trade Union Congress (TUC), and Joint Negotiating Council (JNC) unanimously decided to suspend all services indefinitely, according to a statement released in Abeokuta.
The unions claim that although monthly pension deductions have been regularly deducted from employees’ paychecks for the past 14 years, only 34 of the 204 anticipated months of contributions have been sent by the state and local governments.
Over 17 years, this equates to just under three years’ worth of payments.
The statement read:
“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 [17] years of Its 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 (l.e 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 PFAs. 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 recalled of the widely publicised Adekunle Hassan Pension Reform Committee set up back in 2022. Neither its findings nor its 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 authorities 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 1st July, 2025.
“In clear terms, the indefinite suspension of services across the State and Local Governments takes full effect from 12am, Tuesday 15th July, 2025”
