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Pay our final benefits, we are dying, Ex-Nigeria Airways workers beg FG

Almost 20 years after their counterparts in Europe, Asia and America had been paid their full entitlements, the ex-workers of the defunct Nigeria Airways are still being denied their entitlements by the Nigerian government.

The former national carrier was controversially liquidated in 2004 by the government of the former President Olusegun Obasanjo.

The administration immediately paid the 100 percent final benefits of the foreign workers, in line with the labour laws of their home countries, as against the 50 percent approved for the Nigerian workers and their counterparts in the West Coast.

In an interview with the Nigerian Tribune, former Managing Director of Skyway Aviation Handling Company (SAHCO), who was a topmost worker in the defunct national airline, Alhaji Oluropo Owolabi, appealed to the Minister of Aviation, Mr Festus Keyamo, to do his best in ensuring the former workers are paid finally.

Owolabi, who revealed how many of the affected workers had either lost or sold their properties to survive the hardship brought upon them due to the injustice meted to them, declared how the sad situation had cut short the lives of many of the former workers.

The former SAHCO chief used the opportunity to condemn the relocation of the aviation agencies’ head offices from Lagos to Abuja.

He described the relocation exercise carried out by the immediate past minister, Senator Hadi Sirika, as myopic, on the premise that the major bulk of aviation activities are done in Lagos.

While he argued that there is nothing wrong in keeping the chief executives of the agencies in Abuja, Owolabi, however, maintained that other workers should have been left in Lagos office to continue with the operational jobs.

He equally raised the alarm about the danger the premises housing the defunct Concord newspaper office and the mechanic village along the international axis of the Lagos airport pose to flight operations.

According to Owolabi, the premises the building and the mechanic village presently occupy fall on the flight path, which may spell doom in terms of emergencies.

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