Retirees of the defunct National Carrier, Nigeria Airways, have petitioned President Bola Tinubu, to return them to the Defined Benefits Scheme like their counterparts in the other sectors of the economy.
The ex-workers of the defunct Nigeria Airways in a letter signed by Stephen Onuh and Ahmed Sulugambari, the Chairman and Vice chairman respectively and addressed to the Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo, stated their demand.
The letter and petition, which were made available to the PUNCH on Tuesday, stated that their return to the DBS would enable them to get their pensions just as other retired civil servants.
The retirees under the umbrella of the Airways Retired Workers of Nigeria emphasised that until the liquidation of the airline in 2004 during the former President Olusegun Obasanjo administration, they were enrolled in the scheme.
They claimed that they were controversially removed from the scheme by the government after the liquidation of the airline.
The letter to the President insisted that pensioners were never paid off but expected to be paid till death.
The petitioners comprised those who had retired from the airline before the national carrier was liquidated and those who were let go as a result of the liquidation in 2004.
The petition reads partly, “The N45bn paid to our members were part-payment of our accumulated pension arrears for over 10 years. We were on the monthly pension payroll before the liquidation in September 2004.
“In pursuance to make sure that the pensioners are paid monthly pension, relevant government authorities have made interventions, directing that the pensioners be pay-rolled into the monthly pension scheme of the Federal Government.”
In this light, the group said that the Senate held a public hearing on pensions matters in 2012 and after a thorough investigation, made a resolution directing the authority concerned to immediately commence payment of pensions to the retirees of the airline.
Also, the group 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 integrate the retirees of the former airline into the monthly pension payroll of the government but they claimed that the government ignored the directive.
