With fewer than 30 qualified actuaries for a population of over 200 million, Nigeria has launched an ambitious national effort to bridge the wide actuarial skills gap threatening the country’s financial resilience in the face of climate change, artificial intelligence, and evolving financial products.
Driven by collaboration between regulatory bodies like the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria (FRC), the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM), and the National Pension Commission (PenCom), the push aims to integrate actuarial science into financial governance, deepen local capacity, and position actuaries as central to Nigeria’s risk management ecosystem.
The Executive Secretary of the FRC, Dr. Rabiu Olowo, said actuaries are uniquely equipped through their expertise in mathematics, risk modelling, and long-term financial forecasting to lead in today’s uncertainty. He stressed that Nigeria’s limited actuarial capacity is already affecting the country’s ability to manage pension funds, price insurance products, assess liabilities, and attract long-term investments.
Speaking at the 2025 Nigerian Actuarial Society (NAS) annual conference in Lagos, Olowo revealed that Nigeria has only 28 practising actuaries: five Associates and 23 Fellows, with some of them being foreigners. He compared this to South Africa, which has nearly 2,000 actuaries, and Nigeria’s own large pools of chartered accountants (60,000), bankers (40,000), and insurance professionals (9,000), underscoring the urgent gap in actuarial talent.
To reverse the trend, the FRC has launched several initiatives. These include the Nigerian Actuarial Development Programme (NADP) aimed at growing the next generation of actuaries through bursaries, exam fee refunds for IFoA, SOA, or CAS exams, university mentorship, and a “Catch Them Young” initiative, which has reached over 10,000 students in seven universities and eight secondary schools.
In regulatory terms, Nigeria has exposed a draft of the Nigerian Actuarial Practice Regulations 2025, which proposes full adoption of International Standards of Actuarial Practice. It also plans to introduce actuarial science into senior secondary school curricula and integrate risk and sustainability concepts at the primary school level.
The National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) has also made strides by mandating that every life insurance company must have at least one qualified actuary to handle Asset-Liability Matching (ALM). In a circular dated 29 January 2025, NAICOM directed firms to submit quarterly ALM reports signed by approved actuaries, or temporarily engage external actuaries under Commission approval if they lack in-house capacity.
NAICOM Commissioner for Insurance, Olusegun Omosehin, represented by Dr. Usman Jankara, said actuaries are critical to managing growing challenges such as climate change, cyber threats, and health system vulnerabilities. He also highlighted the need for actuarial input in developing guidelines for emerging areas like InsurTech, which is undergoing regulatory structuring for future operations in Nigeria.
He added that NAICOM is partnering with development agencies like Africa Re Foundation, GIZ, and UNDP to support its Capacity Development Initiative aimed at funding actuarial training and improving compliance capacity across the industry.
Insurers are also taking action. The Managing Director of AIICO Insurance, Babatunde Fajemirokun, called for the integration of machine learning, big data, and dynamic pricing models into actuarial practice to keep pace with customer-centric innovation. He said actuaries must evolve beyond traditional statistical tools and embrace data science to stay relevant in the age of InsurTech and predictive analytics.
Academic voices also reinforced the message. Dr. Tolulope Fadina, Associate Professor at the University of Illinois, noted that climate-induced risks like floods and droughts are on the rise in Nigeria, yet most losses remain uninsured. He called for coordinated national strategies to close the protection gap and recommended using AI and geospatial tools for risk modelling and infrastructure planning.
The actuarial skills gap has also been highlighted by a recent World Bank delegation visit to Nigeria, during which NAICOM admitted that poor local capacity remains a serious hurdle to implementing crucial guidelines like those on annuity portfolios.
Addressing students at the University of Lagos, FRC’s Head of Actuarial Standards, Mr. Olasunkanmi Ayinde, stressed the need for every insurance company, regulatory body, and pension manager to employ one or two actuaries. He added that the FRC is committed to improving awareness, training, and integration of actuarial principles across all levels of the financial system.
In his remarks, Olowo noted, “Today’s actuaries are not just designing pension plans or insurance products. They are modelling financial impacts of climate change, analysing healthcare trends, conducting solvency stress testing, and guiding ethical AI use. This is not a niche profession anymore—it is foundational to economic planning and national resilience.”
The collaborative efforts between government regulators, academia, the insurance industry, and international partners aim to foster a talent pipeline that ensures Nigeria is not left behind in the global actuarial evolution. Experts agree that without such skilled professionals, Nigeria risks systemic weaknesses in its financial and risk management infrastructure.
