From Nigeria Airways to guillotine

For many years the ex-workers of the defunct Nigeria Airways have been calling on the government, and whosoever cares to listen to them, to settle their pay-off long overdue. They used the little they had to buy spaces on our dailies to air their misfortune. They went onto the streets to tell the world of […]

For many years the ex-workers of the defunct Nigeria Airways have been calling on the government, and whosoever cares to listen to them, to settle their pay-off long overdue. They used the little they had to buy spaces on our dailies to air their misfortune. They went onto the streets to tell the world of true nature of their living condition; but, so sad, even that growl is no longer there. Many of them are taken to the spots of the meeting by their offsprings, for they have used up their feet. Some cannot settle their children school fees, neither can they their medical bills; and some barely lay their hands upon three square meals a day, despite the enormous service they paid to this country.

In this eternal wait for their pay-off amounting up to N78bn, not fewer than 700 of those ex-workers lost their lives; and those who persistently go on living are degenerating bit by bit. I wonder if this is the pleasantly suitable medal for the altruistic service they paid.

“Is it a crime to serve one’s own country?” my late father would always ask with air of bewilderment. I can still hear his wheezy breath and prolonging coughs due to asthma he picked up from serving his father land. Not he alone, thousands of those ex-workers are asthmatic; either headwind or tailwind has rewarded them with chocked up airways, congested their respiratory systems: noses, mouths lungs, epiglottises and treacheas – the chest failure if one likes. One needs not know of their mucus membranes.

I would see their comings and goings. Many of them would speak quietly. Their faces looked, and still do, withdrawn and dejected – their wrinkled necks and foreheads, blood-shot eyes, calloused hands and sounds of their crutches are enough to furnish one’s eyes with more than what they can bear; but does the government care to listen to their deafening cries and fix their problems once and for all? I wonder if the answer is yes.

Of recent, the guillotine in the guise of audit committee set up by the president Buhari is calmly and covertly sending the ex-workers to their early graves. The thought of not-too-far a victory after many years of struggle, a path that has robbed, and still does, the struggle of its loud voice and instead replaces it with grimace, put their blood pressure up by days.

Few months ago Alhaji Muhammad Adamu, the national vice chairman Nigeria Union of Pensioners, Airways Branch, threatened to embark upon hunger strike as their, our too, last resort. Perhaps the invitation may be extended to me as a curious observer and heir apparent to this saga. How courageous am I? I may be left with no other option but to ask my sister Sumayya to stand in for me, for it may sound and be suicidal to take a step that direction with wide eyes.

The saddest part of all this is the president’s unbroken silence that can be interpreted as calculated coup de grace, strike of mercy, to silence this Samaritans for good. What one has in these veteran, industrious comrades are walking dead. A complete dying ambition in return for selfless service paid to a nation. 

Abdulyassar Abdulhamid, Abuja.