PHD is not only the highest academic degree in modern scholarship, it is a cynical acronym for the favourite pastime of many enemies of progress, that is “pull him down” in Nigeria. In this context “pull her down” has been pursued with such great vigour and toxic venom to denigrate the person and office of Aisha Dahir Umar, the unassuming, but assiduous Director General of the National Pension Commission, PenCom.
The DG has been in the eye of the storm dating back to her screening for confirmation as the substantive DG of the organisation by the National Assembly two years ago. Needless to say, she was able to scale through, against all odds.
Ever since, the National Assembly, the media, a cross section of civil societies and even the National Association of Nigerian Students have been at one point or the other up in arms against this iron lady of PenCom. Their collective grouse is the spurious, specious and sleazy fake news regarding the payments of humongous salaries and perks to the staffers of Pencom and suchlike fake news. The traducers of the Pencom DG have always been trounced on account of the verifiable facts and figures she always presented to counter them in every material particular. The repeated demystification of the DG’s spirited denouncers is an attestation of the truism that “a clear conscience fears no accusation”. That besides, the outstanding achievements of the DG speak for themselves, including, but not limited to the astronomical rise in pension fund assets and RSA membership, novel multi-fund structure, online enrolment, payment of outstanding pension liabilities, recovery of outstanding pension contributions, micro pension innovation, recapitalization of Pension Fund Administrators, enhanced contributor registration system and the recent commencement of 2023 online verification and enrolment exercise. Indeed, there must be something unique and spectacular about this astute and no-nonsense technocrat.
We therefore salute the courage, fortitude and forthrightness of Aisha Dahir Umar in her goal-oriented administration of this all-important agency which has greatly and positively impacted the lives of Nigeria’s hitherto longsuffering pensioners and senior citizens. We enjoin her to remain focused and ignore the antics of her vicious detractors, including those yet to raise their ugly heads. They are the real adversaries of the pensioners and Nigerian public.
