The emergence of Alhaji Adamu Mu’azu, former Executive Governor of Bauchi State as the new National Chairman of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) is remarkable.  However, that raises a new issue with his recent appointment as Chairman of the National Pension Commission (PenCom).

As an affiliate of Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and a critical stakeholder of the Pension Scheme, we register our strong opposition to this appointment as it will no doubt lead to conflict of interest and crisis of confidence in the system.

The National Pension Commission has recorded a huge success in the management and operation of the Contributory Pension Scheme.  The Commission’s remarkable growth and development in just less than 10 years of its establishment, shows that Nigeria is capable of institution building. With 20 PFAs, 7 closed pension fund administrators, 4 Pension Fund Custodians with turn over of billions of Naira, about N3.7 trillion worth of pension fund assets and 5.83 million registered workers Pencom deserves commendation.

We therefore call on President Goodluck Jonathan not to politicize the position of the Chairmanship of the Board of PenCom as well as its Director General.  The President should have an eye on institution building which requires statesmanship and not partisanship.  We cannot afford to play politics with the new pension scheme given the ugly experience of the recent past.

We therefore call on President Goodluck Jonathan to rethink his appointment of Alhaji Adamu Mu’azu as Chairman of Pencom.

Oladele Hunsu