Vice President of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), Issa Aremu, has urged President Goodluck Jonathan to jealously guide against any alteration in the Pension Reform Act of 2004.

Aremu, at the weekend in his Ilorin country home, said the fund, which according to him, currently stands at N3.6 trillion, remained the best plan for retirees in the country's private and public sectors. The NLC chief praised former President Olusegun Obasanjo for initiating the pension scheme.

He spoke with reporters shortly after leading a jogging exercise with his associates in commemoration of his 52nd birthday. Aremu specifically urged President Jonathan to call to order the Chairman of the Presidential Pension Reform Task Team (PRTT), Abdulrasheed Maina, over his alleged negative statements said to be contrary to the spirit and letters of the 2004 Pension Act.

Besides, Aremu berated Maina for allegedly defying summon by the Senate Joint Committee on Establishment and States and Local Councils during its recently concluded public hearing on public pension administration.

"Also clearly unacceptable is the way and manner the controversial chairman of what is supposed to be a short-term presidential task force carries on as if the task force meant to manage police pension fund mess which clearly lacks any legal backing whatsoever has come to stay permanently.

"Presidential task force cannot and should not be another alternative pension commission in the country. There is only one regulatory pension commission and that is the National Pension Commission (PENCOM) established by an Act of Parliament in 2004," he said.

The Labour leader alleged that Maina had been making "ill-informed, unguarded commentary on the accumulated pension assets contributed through the hard earned savings of Nigerian workers in both the private and public sectors of the economy in the past eight years the Pension Reform Act of 2004 came into being. These commentaries if unchecked are capable of undermining the budding National Pension Fund and even subverting the entire pension market."