The State, Employment and Retirement Management in Developing Countries: Nigeria Perspective

The article sets out to investigate the roles of a state in its social contracts with her citizenry in terms of social security, job creation and retirement management. Political power is often sought by politicians as a means of accomplishing societal objectives. Its possession invariably involves capacity to make and enforce decisions; to mobilize, produce and allocate resources to mediate conflicts and coerce the intransigent; to reward the deserving elements and punish the offenders. It is the responsibility of the government, in its social relations, to distribute societal resources fairly and justly amongst all segments of the society, and to create social security mechanisms to cater for the populace. it is imperative that the state makes life worth living, guarantees citizens wellbeing, provides essential social services, and create employment opportunities to make the citizens economically viable and relevant to society. A state arose as part of a larger social arrangement or system of states called nation-states. The nation-state arrangement legitimates sovereignty and state purposes. The cardinal objective of this article is to establish the social relation that exists between the state and the citizens with particular reference to social contract like employment and management of retirement benefits of employees at old age. The method used to elicit data for the study is documentary evidence. The study revealed that the new contributory pension scheme has failed to emancipate poor workers from slave bondage as their condition is worse with the new dispensation.