Former President Olusegun Obasanjo said the pain passed through by retirees to collect their monthly pension was part of the major reasons why his administration introduced pension reforms in 2003 that birthed the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS).

Obasanjo made the disclosure in a recent meeting with the Chief Executive Officer of the Pension Fund Operators Association of Nigeria (PenOp), a statement by the association has said.

According to the statement, President Obasanjo said that one of the major reasons for the reform was his pain at seeing so many pensioners queuing up to collect their pensions during his first term in office, especially military men who had served the nation. With this in mind, we resolved to see how the government could make pension management and administration private sector driven and more in line with global best practices.

"I was pleasantly surprised at the growth of the pension assets over the last 20 years as my administration instituted the pension reforms, and pushed to have a bill to reform the way pension administration was done in Nigeria. They did not think that the assets would grow this quickly and have the positive effect it has had so far.