Pension Fund Administrators have channelled more than N14.5tn of workers’ retirement savings into Federal Government securities as of March 2025, reinforcing the industry’s deep dependence on sovereign debt.
According to figures obtained from the National Pension Commission, investments in Federal Government securities stood at N14.48tn in the first quarter of 2025, representing 62.09 per cent of the total pension assets of N23.33tn.
In June 2023, the comparable figure was N10.86tn, equivalent to 64.78 per cent of assets valued at N16.76tn.
This means PFAs increased their holdings in government paper by N3.62tn over six quarters, a rise of 33.3 per cent, even though the asset class shed 2.69 percentage points in overall portfolio weight.
The data show that Federal Government bonds remain the cornerstone of pension portfolios. Holdings in bonds climbed from N10.40tn in June 2023 to N13.79tn in March 2025, an increase of N3.39tn or 32.6 per cent, though their share of total assets dropped from 62.07 per cent to 59.1 per cent.
Treasury bills recorded an even sharper surge, rising by N400.8bn or 208.3 per cent from N192.4bn to N593.2bn, lifting their weight from just 1.15 per cent to 2.54 per cent.
