Friday, March 29, 2024

N1bn entitlement: Pay us, ex-airline workers cry out to Jimoh Ibrahim

‘20 of our colleagues have died of hunger’

…say ‘we are dying’

Former workers of the defunct NICON Airways have pleaded with the promoter of the airline, Mr. Jimoh Ibrahim, to pay them the N1 billion benefit accruing from unpaid salaries and allowances, four years after the National Industrial Court, Abuja, had ordered him
to pay.

One of them, Mr. James Nwafor, alleged that the former management of the airline had evaded justice by refusing to pay them. According to him, about 20 members of staff of the defunct airline had died in the last few years while waiting for the
payment.

He said, “We have lost Mr. Moshood Abdul, and Mr. Taiwo Aina, among others, who died due to lack of resources to attend to their ailments.
Their families were helpless and we couldn’t help too because we are all broke. Abdul, who died at Gbagada General Hospital, Lagos, could not raise N120,000 to treat himself.

“Ibrahim filed for an appeal against the National Industrial Court judgment, but was struck out again on May 23, 2017, but he refused to obey the judgment. Since it was delivered, he is in fact evading judgement and has even vowed not to obey it. Our members are dying, one after the other, but he is travelling across the
world.”

Nwafor revealed that NIC had awarded 250 of them about N1bn as unpaid salaries and allowances, following the sudden closure of the airline, which was acquired by Ibrahim from former Kogi State Governor, Capt. Idris
Wada in 2007.

According to him, the 21-page court judgment by Justice M.N. Esowe on September 16, 2013, ordered the management to pay outstanding arrears of leave allowances, crew allowances, overseas unpaid allowances in the United States dollars and cumulative unremitted cooperative by the staff between May 2007 and April 2011 to the ex-workers, which amounts to over
N1 billion.

They argued that the airline was supposed to pay a total of N16.4m as pension funds to the workers; N8.1m as the cumulative contributions to the Nigeria Social and Insurance Trust Fund, which was deducted from the workers’ salaries; entitlements within the period but not remitted; and another payment of N808.7m as the aggregate arrears of the workers’ salaries for the period, among
others.

According to them, the judgment with suit number NICON/LA/192/2011 had Mr. Henry Iwelunmo, Mr. Lukman Kolawole, Mr. George Omoniyi and Mrs. Eunice Odey as plaintiffs, while NICON Airways, Mr. Jimoh Ibrahim and Capt. Idris Ichalla Wada were
defendants.

The ex-workers added that Esowe in his judgment, accused Ibrahim and Wada of abandoning the employment of the first defendant and carting away all the assets of the defendant without any communication and discussion with the plaintiffs on their contracts of employment.

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