‘FG owes Nigeria Airways pensioners N80bn’

The Nigeria Union of Pensioners (NUP) has called on the federal government to urgently pay its members at the defunct Nigeria Airways their benefit totalling about N80 billion.
Chairman of NUP, Nigeria Airways branch, comrade Sam Nzene who disclosed this to Journalists said out of the money, N3 billion is for supplementary payment of those who are yet to verify, while N77b is for the twenty years which Government was supposed to pay the retires.
He said it was sad, painful and shocking that pensioners who served this country in their youths were treated less than human being in the same country.

Nzene said despite peaceful protest at Lagos and Kano by the union to force government to pay the senior citizens what was due to them did not yielded any meaningful result.
He said the issue had been foot-dragging since March, 2008, stressing that some of the pensioners had died while some were seriously sick without money to take care of themselves.
“We have begged for our rights to be given to us but no one seems to care, just because they see us as been toothless, let everyone remember that like death, we must all retire someday and somehow,” he said.
In a letter addressed to Minister of Aviation, dated April 13, 2014, the union accused the Ministry of frustrating the payment of the severance packages for its members.