voluntary contribution

Have you ever looked at your pension balance and thought, this is not going to be enough when I stop working?

That question is exactly what a voluntary contribution answers. It is the money you add on your own, beyond the compulsory percentage that leaves your salary every month, because you have decided that the standard amount will not carry you the way you want to be carried in old age.

In Nigeria, your employer and you already send a fixed percentage of your pay into your Retirement Savings Account under the Contributory Pension Scheme. That part is not optional. But the law also lets you add more, called a Voluntary Pension Contribution, and many Pension Fund Administrators make this as simple as a bank transfer from your phone.

Say Ngozi earns ₦350,000 a month and her compulsory pension deduction is already sorted between her and her employer. She decides to send an extra ₦20,000 every month into her RSA through her PFA's app, on top of that. Over ten years, with interest added, that voluntary top up can become a meaningful sum that grows her retirement pot far beyond what was compulsory.

For someone in the diaspora sending money home, this idea travels well too. A Nigerian nurse in Manchester who still keeps an RSA back home might send occasional voluntary contributions to keep that Nigerian pension growing, even while also paying into a UK workplace pension. Two pots, one future.

The beauty of it is control. Nobody is forcing you, but nobody is stopping you either, and that calm freedom to add more whenever you can is what makes voluntary contributions worth understanding early.