Ex-Nigeria Airways staff protest non-payment of N45bn pensions in Lagos

Former workers of the defunct Nigeria Airways Limited, on Tuesday, staged a peaceful protest at the Murtala Muhammed Airport (MMA), in Lagos, to press home their demand for the release of over N45 billion pensions owed them by the Federal Government following the liquidation of the erstwhile national carrier in 2003.

The protest, which was staged under the auspices of the Aviation Unions Grand Alliance (AUGA), a coalition of ex-workers of Nigeria Airways Limited, led to severe traffic crisis along the ever busy roads leading to the domestic and international terminals of the Lagos airport as vehicular movement was stalled by the protesters who occupied the roads.

The protest march by the former Nigerian workers started from the premises of the Skypower Catering Service Limited located with the airport with hundreds of members carrying various placards lamenting their poor treatment by the Nigerian government.

Some of the placards queried the decision of the Finance Minister, Mr. Kemi Adeosun, to delay the release of the funds almost eight months after President Muhamadu Buhari had approved its disbursement.

“Release N45 billion severance package to former staff of Nigeria Airways,” one placard read. “President Buhari, save us from Kemi Adeosun now,” was the inscription on another placard.

Two other placards sighted read: “Mrs. Adeosun, your action and inaction are man’s inhumanity to man”. “Madam Minister of Finance, where is our pension and entitlements, pay us now.”

Chairman of Nigeria Airways’ branch of the Nigeria Union of Pensioners (NUP), Mr. Sam Ezene, who addressed the aggrieved former Nigerian Airways workers, decried their plights, and noted that some of them had put in so much in the service of the airline at their youthful age only to be abandoned with their pension and other severance entitlements denied them in their old and inactive age.

Nzene, who urged the Federal Ministry of Finance to commence the disbursement of the funds to the workers, said the protest would move to Abuja after if nothing positive was done by the government as concerning the payments of the workers pension.

“The Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, keeps insisting that National Assembly has to approve and we went to the National Assembly but they said there is nothing on Nigeria Airways at the National Assembly. That is what we have been dragging since September,” he said.