Tinubu says pensions were paid "on time and in full" since 2023. His pension agency paid 13 months of a 2024 increase as arrears, the last in April 2026

On Thursday, 1 October 2026, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu gave his Independence Day address, titled "From Reform to Prosperity". In a passage on support for poorer households, he said: "Since 2023, we have paid salaries and pensions on time and in full. We have reformed the national pension program to benefit retirees and the vulnerable." Vero Record took the text from the State House website, where it was posted on 1 October under Press Releases, and compared it with the full text published by Channels Television. We then set that one sentence against two federal records: the public statements of the government's own pension agency, and the 2026 Appropriation Act that the President signed in April.

The agency is the Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD). It pays federal retirees who are still on the old Defined Benefit Scheme (DBS), in which the government pays the pension directly instead of through a retirement savings account. Its departments cover the police, the civil service, parastatals, customs, immigration and prisons, and tertiary education and health. The President took office on 29 May 2023, so his sentence covers every month PTAD has paid since then.

PTAD has described in its own words what happened to a pension increase approved during this administration. In a statement that PensionNigeria, a pension-industry news site, published on 29 April 2026, PTAD said the N32,000 pension increment had been "approved by the National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission (NSIWC)" and "took effect from July 29, 2024". The statement cites an NSIWC circular, Ref. No. SWC/S/04/S.542/III/461 dated 27 September 2024, which exempts pensioners of some defunct bodies (including NITEL/MTEL, PHCN, NICON Insurance and Peoples Bank) because they had already received 10.66 and 12.95 per cent increases. BusinessDay reported in December 2024 that the increase had been "backdated to July 29, 2024". We have not obtained the NSIWC circular itself, and we read PTAD's statements as PensionNigeria reproduced them, because PTAD's own website blocked automated retrieval. For that reason this article grades them B.

In February 2025, BusinessDay reported a PTAD statement in which Executive Secretary Tolulope Odunaiya said the pension payments for January 2025 "did not include the N32,000 increment because the necessary funds have not yet been released". The same report says PTAD had by then paid four months of arrears (August to November 2024) to Civil Service pensioners, and five months (August to December 2024) to the Customs, Immigration and Prisons, Police and university-sector pensioners.

An earlier PTAD statement, headed "Setting the Record Straight on the N32,000 Pension Increment Implementation", was published by PensionNigeria on 10 December 2025. It says the N32,000, 10.66 and 12.95 per cent increments "took effect with the September 2025 pension payroll", after the President approved an emergency budgetary allocation. It says PTAD was "still awaiting the full release of the emergency budgetary provision" and was paying accrued arrears "in tranches, based on the availability of funds within its coffers". The statement refers in its own words to "the delayed implementation of the N32,000 pension increment".

The December 2025 statement includes a table of the months of arrears paid and still owed. The Police Pension Department had been paid 13 months, with none outstanding. The Civil Service Pension Department had been paid 6 months, with 7 outstanding. The Parastatals Pension Department had been paid 7, with 6 outstanding. The Customs, Immigration and Prisons Pension Department had been paid 11, with 2 outstanding. In the same statement PTAD says it had "sustained the regular and prompt payment of monthly pensions to all verified DBS Pensioners", and that the federal government had paid a cumulative N1.002 trillion in monthly DBS pensions between 2015 and October 2025.

The April 2026 statement says PTAD then paid "the outstanding one (1) month arrears" of the N32,000 increment: N1,734,592,000 to 54,206 pensioners. Of this, N825,728,000 went to 25,804 pensioners in the Parastatals Pension Department and N908,864,000 to 28,402 pensioners in the Tertiary Education and Health Pension Department. For those two departments, it says the arrears "covered a thirteen (13)-month period from August, 2024 to August, 2025", that PTAD "had earlier paid twelve (12) months of these arrears in phases between December 2024 and December 2025", and that "all outstanding obligations of the N32,000 pension increment have now been fully settled." Vero Record checked the arithmetic. The two payments add up to N1,734,592,000, the two groups add up to 54,206 people, and each payment works out to exactly N32,000 per pensioner, which is one month of the increase.

Our own reading, graded C, is as follows. PTAD's account shows that for 13 months, from August 2024 to August 2025, eligible DBS pensioners were paid at a monthly rate lower than the one the government had approved from July 2024. The difference reached them later as arrears, paid in tranches between December 2024 and April 2026. The last payment came about 21 months after the increase took effect. On PTAD's own figures, these pensioners did not receive their approved pension in full, at the time it was due, during those months. PTAD's statements also say the basic monthly pension was paid regularly. On PTAD's own account, then, the "on time" part of the President's sentence holds for the basic pension. The "in full" part does not hold for the period in which the increase was owed but not yet paid.

The 2026 Appropriation Act contains further entries. President Tinubu assented to the bill, which provides for N68.32 trillion in spending, according to a State House statement dated 17 April 2026. Vero Record downloaded the Act's details from the Budget Office of the Federation and read the Service Wide Vote, code 0238005002, on pages 937 to 939. Page 938 lists "PAYMENT FOR PROMOTION AND SALARY ARREARS" at N150,000,000,000, marked ONGOING. Next to it is "OUTSTANDING RETIREMENT BENEFIT AND LENGTH OF SERVICE ALLOWANCE FOR 2023, 2024 AND 2025 FOR THE ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL CRIME COMMISSION (EFCC)" at N7,158,295,883, also ONGOING. The page also lists "PENSION INCREASE DUE TO 2024 CONSEQUENTIAL ADJUSTMENT" at N67,722,681,600, marked NEW.

The EFCC line is the only one whose own wording ties unpaid sums to years the President's sentence covers. The Act signed by the President calls retirement benefits and length of service allowances for 2023, 2024 and 2025 "outstanding". These are lump-sum entitlements, not monthly salaries or pensions, so the line does not by itself contradict the sentence. It does show sums owed to federal staff for those years that were still unpaid when the 2026 budget was drawn up. The Act does not say how many people are owed, when each sum fell due, or whether the 2023 amounts relate to the months before or after 29 May 2023. The line is marked ONGOING rather than NEW, which in these schedules indicates a line continuing from an earlier year. Vero Record tried to check the 2025 Appropriation Act, but the copy downloaded from the Budget Office on 2 October would not open, so we have not made that comparison.

The salary arrears line needs more care. Salary arrears can arise when a promotion takes effect from a date before it is processed, and the Act gives no breakdown of the N150 billion between promotion arrears and other salary arrears. The line shows that the federal government budgeted N150 billion in 2026 to pay salary sums owed from earlier periods. It does not by itself show that any monthly salary was paid late. We have found no public breakdown of the line.

The Act does not say which pension increase the N67,722,681,600 line is for. Page 939 also carries a separate line, "IMPLEMENTATION OF NEW APPROVED PENSION RATES", at N23,287,656,970, marked ONGOING. On 11 September 2025, Leadership reported a PTAD statement saying the President had approved including in the 2026 budget proposal "funding for the full implementation of the N32,000 pension increment and settlement of unfunded pension liabilities". That makes the N32,000 increment a likely candidate for one or both lines. The link is our inference (C), and the Act itself does not confirm it.

Some arrears in the same part of the Act clearly date from before this administration and do not bear on the President's sentence. Page 938 lists "ARREARS OF GRATUITIES (JAN 2019 - DEC 2021)" at N3,961,693,922 and "UNFUNDED LIABILITIES" at N30,576,456,010. Page 939 lists a new line of N16,170,030,956 for a "2.5% SHORTFALL FOR EMPLOYER PENSION CONTRIBUTION FOR OMITTED TERTIARY INSTITUTION APRIL 2017 - DECEMBER 2021". The contributory scheme shows a similar mix. In February 2025 the Federal Executive Council approved a N758 billion bond for pension liabilities, according to the Director-General of the National Pension Commission, Omolola Oloworaran, as reported by Nairametrics. She listed N253 billion for retirees of treasury-funded agencies, "addressing the delays caused by previous funding shortfalls", N388 billion for pension increases unpaid since 2007, N107 billion for the Pension Protection Fund and N11 billion for retired professors. Those four parts add up to N759 billion, N1 billion more than the headline figure. This may be rounding, but we have not seen the council memo that would show it. Her account does not say how much of the N253 billion was owed to people who retired after May 2023.

PTAD's records also do not line up with each other. The April 2026 statement says the Parastatals and the Tertiary Education and Health departments had been paid 12 of their 13 months between December 2024 and December 2025. PTAD's own table of 10 December 2025 shows the Parastatals department with 7 months paid and 6 outstanding. For both to be right, 5 months would have been paid in the last three weeks of December 2025. We have found no PTAD record of such a payment. The December table also lists four departments and does not include Tertiary Education and Health. At December 2025, the Civil Service department was owed 7 months and the Customs, Immigration and Prisons department 2 months. We have not found a PTAD record of when those months were paid. The April statement's words, "all outstanding obligations ... have now been fully settled", suggest they had been paid by then, but they do not give dates. These records appear inconsistent, and we have asked PTAD to explain them.

This is what the documents establish. The President said on 1 October that salaries and pensions have been paid "on time and in full" since 2023. His pension agency's own statements describe a pension increase that took effect in July 2024, was left out of the January 2025 payroll for lack of released funds, entered the monthly payroll in September 2025, and was paid as arrears in tranches until April 2026, and they use the word "delayed" about it. The 2026 budget he signed provides money for promotion and salary arrears, and for EFCC retirement benefits it calls outstanding for 2023, 2024 and 2025. The documents do not establish that any monthly salary or basic pension was paid late. They do not show that any pensioner is still owed the N32,000 increase today, because PTAD says it has been settled. They also do not show what the President meant "in full" to cover.

Vero Record is sending questions to the Presidency's media office, to PTAD and to the Budget Office. We are asking the Presidency whether the sentence was meant to include approved increases paid later as arrears. We are asking PTAD for the dates on which the Civil Service and the Customs, Immigration and Prisons departments' outstanding months were paid, and how the Parastatals department went from 7 months paid on 10 December 2025 to 12 by the end of that month. We are asking the Budget Office what the N150 billion salary arrears line and the two pension increase lines cover. Any reply will be added to this article. The State House text, the three pages of the Act and the PTAD statements as published are linked below so that readers can check every figure quoted here.

What this rests on

The State House text of the 1 October 2026 Independence Day address (read in full, matched against the Channels Television text); pages 937 to 939 of the 2026 Appropriation Act details from the Budget Office (downloaded and read; the Service Wide Vote lines quoted are grade A); the State House assent statement of 17 April 2026; two PTAD statements of December 2025 and April 2026, read as reproduced by PensionNigeria because PTAD's website blocked retrieval (grade B); PTAD statements and remarks as reported by BusinessDay (December 2024 and February 2025) and Leadership (September 2025), and the PenCom Director-General's remarks reported by Nairametrics (B); Vero Record's own arithmetic and reading, labelled C.

What this does not establish

That any monthly salary or basic pension was paid late since May 2023 (the only evidence that basic pensions were paid on time is PTAD's own description); the NSIWC circular itself (Ref. SWC/S/04/S.542/III/461 of 27 September 2024), which we have not obtained; PTAD's statements taken directly from PTAD; how PTAD's April 2026 account (12 months paid to the Parastatals department by December 2025) squares with its own table of 10 December 2025 (7 months paid); when the Civil Service and Customs, Immigration and Prisons departments' outstanding months were paid; what the N150 billion promotion and salary arrears line breaks down into; which increase the N67,722,681,600 and N23,287,656,970 pension lines fund; how many EFCC staff are owed and for which months of 2023; whether the EFCC line appeared in the 2025 Act (our 2025 Act download was unreadable); how much of the N758 billion bond concerned post-May 2023 retirees. Right of reply: questions are being sent to the Presidency, PTAD and the Budget Office. None has been received yet.