Delayed RSA Processing: Court Awards Damages Against IBTC Pension, Others
The National Industrial Court sitting in Calabar, Cross River State, has awarded N3 million in damages against IBTC Pension Managers Limited over its failure to promptly process a pension withdrawal request filed by a former bank employee, Mr. Adefowowe Adebamowo.
Also joined in the suit were the National Pension Commission (PenCom) and Access Bank Plc.
In a judgment delivered on June 18, 2026, Justice Sanusi Kado held that the claimant suffered hardship and was ultimately denied his statutory right to access 25 per cent of his Retirement Savings Account (RSA) due to the negligence of the defendants.
The suit, marked NICN/CA/53/2024, was instituted after IBTC Pension declined to process Adebamowo’s request to withdraw 25 per cent of his RSA balance, a benefit available to pension contributors under the age of 50 who have remained unemployed for at least four months.
IBTC Pension had argued that Access Bank mistakenly continued remitting pension contributions into Adebamowo’s RSA after he left the bank in 2007. According to the pension administrator, the excess contributions had to be reversed before the withdrawal request could be approved.
The claimant, however, maintained that only N1.69 million, representing the actual excess contributions, should be recovered. He challenged the attempt to deduct investment returns that had accrued on the disputed funds and sought court orders restraining further deductions.
During the proceedings, evidence revealed that Access Bank continued making pension remittances into Adebamowo’s RSA between June 2007 and March 2013 despite the termination of his employment. The contributions were later discovered to belong to another employee, Mr. Abdullahi Bello.
IBTC Pension initially informed the claimant that the excess remittance and accrued returns amounted to approximately N2.1 million. The figure was later revised upward to N7.9 million after the pension administrator said an earlier calculation was based on an incorrect fund pricing method.
In his ruling, Justice Kado held that both the excess contributions and the investment returns generated from them did not belong to the claimant and could legally be transferred to the rightful owner.
The court consequently dismissed the claimant’s requests seeking to prevent the recovery of the disputed funds.
However, the judge faulted the defendants for failing to detect and rectify the erroneous remittances over several years and for delaying action on the claimant’s withdrawal application.
Justice Kado ruled that the negligence of the defendants deprived Adebamowo of the opportunity to access the 25 per cent withdrawal before he attained the age of 50, thereby causing him avoidable hardship.
The court awarded N3 million in damages, directing each of the three defendants IBTC Pension Managers Limited, PenCom and Access Bank to pay N1 million each. It also awarded N600,000 in costs in favour of the claimant.
