Social Policy and the Retrenchment of the Welfare State in Nigeria: The Old and New Pension Schemes and Lessons from the Nordic Model

Abstract

The 2004 pension reform in Nigeria was a paradigm shift in social policy from the social model of the pre-2004 era to the Anglo-Saxon contributory model that aligns with the emergent “convergence downwards” in the global South, driven by the globalization of neo-liberalism. A major flaw of the reform was that it tended to uncritically follow the dictates of supranational institutions without accounting for important endogenous factors that undermined the pre-2004 social security model. These include state irresponsibility, social dumping, lack of state accountability and its incapacity for competent but disinterested bureaucrats. This paper, therefore, undertakes a comparison of the old and new pension schemes in Nigeria - using selected variables. It further examines external constraints and local possibilities integral to the social protection question in Nigeria, drawing attention to important lessons from the Welfare State experiences in Europe, with particular reference to the Nordic model. It also highlights certain micro-level creative responses of worker cooperatives and trade unions that are instructive for social policy direction in the light of decent work agenda in Nigeria.

Keywords: Pension; Neo-Liberalism; Social Security; Welfare State; Social Policy.