The plight of former Nigeria Airways employees remains unresolved despite a presidential approval for final settlement in June 2025. Over 4,000 staff were retired without terminal benefits after the airline's 2003 liquidation under President Olusegun Obasanjo, following a 2001 rationalization exercise led by then Aviation Minister Dr. Kema Chikwe. The Aboki Zawa Committee, tasked with restructuring, had recommended no retirements without full payment of entitlements, but this was ignored. President Obasanjo approved liquidation despite advice from the International Finance Corporation that Nigeria Airways' assets—valued at four times its liabilities—could support revival. These assets included skilled personnel, landed properties in Ikeja, London, New York, Nairobi, Jeddah, and Rome, and valuable route networks. All were disposed of by liquidator Babington Ashamu. The unpaid severance, now valued at N36 billion, was partially addressed during Umaru Musa Yar'Adua's administration with a five-year terminal benefit payment, though entitlements were calculated for 15 years. Overseas staff received 25 years' payment promptly. Goodluck Jonathan took no action. Under Muhammadu Buhari, then Aviation Minister Hadi Sirika prepared documentation, but Finance Minister Kemi Adeosun delayed approval and reportedly treated retirees poorly during protests. President Bola Tinubu approved the final N36 billion settlement in June 2025, following advocacy by current Aviation Minister Festus Keyamo.
Festus Keyamo may have done the bureaucratic groundwork, but President Bola Tinubu's nine-month delay in releasing the N36 billion owed to Nigeria Airways retirees has turned a gesture of closure into another chapter of neglect. The approval, granted in June 2025, came not from sudden urgency but from sustained pressure, exposing how little political will exists to correct historical injustices unless forced.
The roots of this crisis lie in the Obasanjo era's disregard for due process and human cost, where liquidation was chosen over rehabilitation despite clear alternatives. The fact that assets worth multiples of the airline's debt were sold off while staff received nothing reveals a pattern of governance where institutions are dismantled without accountability. Successive finance and aviation ministers, across administrations, either ignored or obstructed redress, suggesting this is not mere bureaucratic inertia but systemic indifference.
For the surviving retirees, many now elderly and impoverished, the delayed payment is not just about money—it is recognition of their service. Thousands who built Nigeria's aviation sector have lived in financial limbo for over two decades, watching colleagues abroad receive full entitlements while they were treated as expendable.
This case fits a broader pattern: Nigeria's institutions are repeatedly sacrificed without consequence, and those who served them are forgotten until political optics demand otherwise. The N36 billion is not an expense but a long-overdue debt, and its delayed release reinforces the reality that promises of renewal often fade before action begins.
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