About 6,000 retirees of the liquidated national carrier, Nigeria Airways, under the auspices of the Association of Airways Retired Workers of Nigeria (AARWN) have appealed to the federal government to return them to the Defined Benefits Scheme (DBS) like their counterparts in the other sectors of the economy to enable them get pension for life.
Their appeal was contained in a letter dated May 20, 2024, and signed by Stephen Onuh and Ahmed Sulu Gambari, chairman and vice chairman of AARWN, respectively.
They also sought an audience with the Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Mr Festus Keyamo, to properly inform him of their plight.
They also expressed displeasure over the attitude of some of the staff of the ministry to their predicament.
The retirees also petitioned President Bola Tinubu to press home their demand for inclusion in the DBS, saying they were until the liquidation of the airline in 2004 by former President Olusegun Obasanjo not enrolled in the scheme, alleging that they were controversially removed from the scheme by the government after the liquidation of the airline.
The pensioners also argued that the N45bn severance package, which some of them benefited from, was part of their accumulated 10 years pension arrears suspended by the federal government after the liquidation of the carrier.
The group said that the Senate held a public hearing on pension matters in 2012 and that after a thorough investigation made a resolution directing the authorities concerned to immediately commence payment of pension to the retirees of the airline.
Apart from the Senate, the group also said that the House of Representatives in a letter addressed to the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, dated February 26, 2013, urged the government to immediately integrate the retirees of the former airline into the monthly pension payroll of the government.
The pensioners emphasised that the House of Representatives through their investigation were able to establish that they were entitled to "pension for life".
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The pensioners decried that since the last payment of N45bn to the entire former staff of the airline, the pensioners were owed four years pension arrears from 2020 to 2024.
They, therefore, prayed the federal government to mandate the Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD) to handle the payment of whatever was approved for them, while also integrating the existing pensioners before liquidation into the monthly payroll, stressing that this would enable their plight to be solved once and for all.
