Ex-Nigeria Airways workers die in droves as FG fails to pay benefits

Over two decades after the liquidation of the now defunct Nigeria Airways, the different governments that had and still running the affairs of the country are still struggling to pay the final entitlements of the of the national carrier.

The contradict treatment enjoyed by the former international workers  from countries like America and Europe who were almost. Immediately after the liquidation paid off their entitlements in line with the labour laws of their home countries.

While it took the subsequent governments including those of the late Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, and Muhammadu Buhari pressures from the former workers and the Aviation unions to settle the outstanding benefits of the ex workers, a large number of the affected workers are dead while others have become a ghost of themselves as they wait hopelessly to get paid.

As the former national carrier’s workers continue to die in drones, the latest information which got to the public domain has again painted the gory details of how another set of five of the affected workers have died in the past one week.

Confirming the death of the former workers, the Air Transport Services Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (ATSSSAN) lamented how the fallen workers had passed away in one week without receiving their final severance packages as promised by the federal government since the liquidation of the the airline by the Olusegun Obasanjo administration.

ATSSSAN noted that over a hundred former workers of the country’s national airline had died since the last verification and part payment exercise carried out during the Muhammadu Buhari’s administration in 2019.

Making the declaration during the recently celebrated workers day at the ATSSSAN secretariat in Lagos, First Vice President of the association, Comrade Emmanuel Jaja, urged the federal government to settle all the outstanding severance benefits of the erstwhile Nigeria carrier workers who he said put in the greater part of their lives in the service of their Fatherland.

He said: “Again we wish to lament the death of five former Staff of the Nigerian Airways Staff who lost their lives in the last one week, including the pilot whose plane was hijacked in 1993, Captain Makpo Omodiagbe without them receiving their full benefits from the federal government after the liquidation of the airline.

“The government must endeavour to pay the remaining living staff so that they can enjoy the labour of their lives before they are called home by their creator.”

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