Former NAL employees appeal to FG for severance benefits

Former employees of the defunct Nigeria Airways Limited (NAL) have called on the federal government to pay them all their entitlements including pensions.
Spokesman for the workers, Mr. Sheri Kyari who made the appeal in Lagos at the weekend, said it had become a matter of urgency because some of the workers had died due to hardship while the surviving ones were going through excruciating pains occasioned by lack of money to take care of themselves and their dependants.
“The federal government has to intervene to prevent more deaths on the part of the pensioners,” he said.
Kyari who threatened that the workers would be mobilized against the ruling party in the 2015 general elections asked: “Why are we being subjected to this cruel and inhuman treatment? What is our offence? Why are Nigerians not helping us? ‘Why is our government killing us systematically? Are we no more Nigerians?”
He added: “The former NAL workers had little to do with the management of the airline and its fortunes. Government policies and frequent interference led to the liquidation of the airline even against sound advice from international institutions such as the International Finance Corporation (IFC).”
Similarly, employees of the liquidated airline from the West Coast also appealed to the Nigerian government to pay them their entitlements.
The appeal is contained in a letter signed by Messrs Mensah Tetey from Lome; Afandomi Raymond, Cotonou; Ndoke Hannah, Cameroun and Emejule Phina, Libreville.
The petition reads in part: “We the West Coast staff from Lome (Togo), Cotonou (Benin), Douala (Cameroon) and Libreville (Gabon) of the liquidated NAL have the honour most respectfully, to table before you our cry, appealing for your immediate intervention for the payments of our final entitlements with the liquidated NAL. The airline was liquidated in 2003. While our Nigerian counterparts were paid the totality of their entitlements in 2008, those from the West coast were left out.”