Former Tourism Manager of Nigeria Airways, Irene Elene Efue, has accused successive Nigerian governments of neglecting retired workers by delaying pension payments owed to former staff of the defunct national carrier for over two decades.

Speaking in an interview on ARISE NEWS on Saturday, Efue described the prolonged delay in settling the outstanding N36 billion pension arrears approved by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu as painful. “It’s very painful. And it’s totally unnecessary that a government owes its own workers their entitlement pension for over 20 years.”

Efue explained that many former employees of Nigeria Airways had died while waiting for their pensions. “Painful because I can’t count the number. I didn’t know everybody in Nigeria Airways. But the ones I knew that are gone, there’s no doubt about that, Every day, the government delays means more people dying, more people being buried.”

According to her, over 2,000 former workers of the airline have reportedly died since the pension dispute began. “Over 20 years, this problem has been going on. And we’ve lost about 2,000 people, counting, these staff not only worked, offered their services, they paid taxes. They brought revenue into the national purse. They flew the flag of Nigeria all over the world.”

The former airline executive said the plight of retirees reflected a broader national failure to prioritise elderly citizens and vulnerable groups.

“There are all kinds of organisations, youth, youth, youth, but nobody talks about the elderly. The weakest group of people in the society,” she added.

Efue appealed directly to President Tinubu to intervene and compel the Ministry of Finance to release the approved funds. “We are crying, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the father of the nation, to cause a change in this sad narrative. We are asking him to compel the Minister of Finance without any more delay to pay this money in any which way,” Efue pleaded.

She also linked Nigeria’s current aviation challenges to long-standing structural and policy failures. “The aviation industry in Nigeria has always been volatile. It is always subject to all kinds of factors, both internal and external, because it’s a complicated space. When the Iran-Israeli-USA thing started, we thought it was going to be just between them. Now the whole world is a victim of that decision.”

On tourism, Efue said Nigeria was underperforming despite the country’s huge potential. “I think the answer to that would be a strong no. However, it’s not a hopeless case,” Efue said when asked whether Nigeria was doing enough to develop its tourism sector. But we have to fix some of these obvious challengesYou can’t travel by roads. The roads are not safe.”

She, however, praised the growth of the Dirty December entertainment and tourism culture. “I was excited the other day because Dirty December started in Lagos, but it’s moving out of Lagos, it’s expanding to other places If we sustain it and manage our environmental challenges, Dirty December could lead to other things.” (Arise News)

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