The Federal Executive Council’s (FEC) recent approval of a 100% gratuity for civil servants is novel and better described as a “watershed” victory for labour.
However, thousands of retirees enrolled on the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) who exited work before 2026 could be excluded, making the “victory” feel more like a betrayal of service.
The hard date of January 1, 2026 set for implementation inadvertently has cut off a large chunk of eligible retirees. Without fear of any contradiction, justice and equity would be denied in the eyes of those who feel excluded.
The government should readjust the cutoff date to ensure more inclusive participation that reflects the decades of workers’ sacrifice under the new pension architecture.
Continuing the pension in the current shape is not just a policy oversight, but also a Retirement Apartheid
Consequently, the government should address the identified deficiencies by paying all enrolled pensioners their benefits from the exit time.
Since 2004, the CPS has been a hollow shell for the Nigerian worker, stripped of the gratuity that once served as a vital soft landing.
For 22 years, civil servants watched their “exit benefits” vanish, replaced by a system that often takes years to pay out a single kobo. Now that the government has finally admitted this was a mistake and reintroduced gratuity, why is the correction not retroactive?
To reward a 2026 retiree with 100% of their annual salary while leaving a 2022 retiree to drown in the current Naira devaluation and hyper-inflationary economy is a moral failure.
Indeed to deny them this “financial safety net” is to abandon them to the very economic hardship the scheme seeks to solve.
Ebonyi State has set a great precedent worthy of emulation. Gratuities are backdated to 1996 to ensure no one was left behind and value of benefits brought to date.
One would note that these same “pre-2026” retirees were those who patiently stayed at their desks while the Naira crumbled and the cost of living hit the roof.
They did the heavy lifting of the transition era, yet they are being sidestepped by the very “Renewed Hope” they helped nurture.
The Head of Service, Mrs. Didi Esther Walson-Jack, calls this a “bold move” that recognizes professionalism. But there is nothing bold about excluding those veterans who just handed over the baton.
If the government can find the “technical input” to fund 2026, it must find the political will to provide a “Look-Back” provision for those who retired since the subsidy removal began.
Anything less than an inclusive roll-out makes this gratuity a “lottery of birth dates” rather than a reward for service. The President must act now to bridge this gap.
Building a “motivated” civil service on the back of injustice toward recent forerunners cannot be sustained. Government should be fair and just to everyone!
*Chief Ibrahim Nasir is a Public Affairs Analyst
