The Federal Government has begun disbursing N18bn in outstanding severance benefits to 2,700 former employees of the defunct Nigeria Airways, over 20 years after the national carrier was liquidated.
The Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Taiwo Oyedele, announced this on Friday during a press briefing at the Federal Ministry of Finance in Abuja.
Oyedele disclosed that 2,100 former workers from batches one to seven had already received their entitlements, while 600 beneficiaries from batches eight and nine had been approved for payment.
“Altogether, this represents N18bn in benefits for 2,700 former workers,” he said.
The minister explained that the payment was initiated following President Bola Tinubu’s directive to address the decades-old obligation owed to the former workers.
He noted that many beneficiaries had aged while waiting for their entitlements, while others had died, leaving their families to continue pursuing the payments.
“For more than two decades, following the liquidation of Nigeria Airways, many former employees have waited for their outstanding severance benefits. Some have grown old waiting. Some have sadly passed away, leaving their families to pursue what was legitimately due to them,” Oyedele said.
Oyedele admitted that the settlement could not make up for the more than two decades of delay but stressed that the government had chosen to address inherited liabilities instead of allowing them to persist.
“We recognise that no payment today can fully compensate for more than two decades of waiting, but it is important that government confronts these long-standing obligations rather than allowing them to remain unresolved for another generation,” he added.
He said the payment process involved extensive verification exercises, including biometric registration and confirmation of beneficiaries’ personal and banking details.
According to him, the measures were introduced to eliminate fraudulent claims and ensure payments went only to legitimate beneficiaries.
Oyedele added that additional verification would be conducted to address cases involving outdated records, wrong bank details and beneficiaries who died before receiving their entitlements.
For deceased beneficiaries, he explained that their payments would be transferred to their documented next-of-kin or estates once the necessary legal procedures had been completed.
Responding to questions about whether the benefits had been adjusted to reflect inflation over the past two decades, Oyedele said the government was paying the amounts that had been documented and verified.
He acknowledged that inflation had significantly reduced the value of the entitlements but noted that the settlement did not provide for inflationary adjustments.
The minister explained that payments were being released in batches to ensure verified beneficiaries did not have to wait for unresolved claims to be processed.
He also stated that the exercise covered all categories of former Nigeria Airways workers, irrespective of whether they were junior or senior employees.
Oyedele said the payments formed part of the Federal Government’s wider effort to settle verified inherited obligations, including outstanding pension benefits and debts owed to indigenous contractors.
He revealed that over 12,000 indigenous contractors had also received payments under the exercise.
According to him, the government first focused on smaller contractors owed N50m or less before extending the payments to verified claims of up to N100m.
He said larger debts running into billions of naira could be handled separately through negotiations and mechanisms such as promissory notes.
The minister explained that the strategy was designed to support small businesses that needed the funds to pay workers’ salaries and meet other immediate financial obligations.
He also cautioned contractors against offering commissions or inducements to government officials in exchange for facilitating payments, describing such demands as illegal.
Oyedele said the government was equally working to prevent the recurrence of unpaid obligations by making budgets more realistic and ensuring capital expenditure commitments had clear funding sources.
“We will do our best to ensure that the accumulated obligations of the past do not repeat themselves,” he said.
The minister apologised to the former Nigeria Airways workers for the prolonged delay, emphasising that the payments were their legitimate entitlements and not government favours.
