Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo, has accused former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar of hypocrisy over the liquidation of Nigeria Airways in 2004 and the alleged failure of the administration he served in to pay former workers their pensions and gratuities.
In a statement addressed to Atiku on social media, Keyamo said the administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo liquidated the national carrier in September 2004, leaving thousands of Nigerians jobless and causing hardship for affected workers and their families.
“Your Excellency, Atiku Abubakar, this is hypocrisy at its peak! Let me just talk only about the sector that I head, Aviation,” Keyamo said.
He alleged that the government failed to pay the former workers’ pensions and gratuities, which he said amounted to billions of naira.
“To add salt into their wounds, you refused to pay them their pensions and gratuities, running into billions of Naira,” he said.
Keyamo said President Bola Tinubu’s administration was now addressing the outstanding payments, claiming that the President had approved and released N36 billion to provide relief to the affected workers and their families.
“Twenty-two years later, after many of them have died out of frustration, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is now clearing the mess you left behind. Over a month ago, Mr. President approved and released the total sum N36 billion to bring succour to these families,” he said.
According to Keyamo, the beneficiaries had begun receiving payment alerts, while the workers’ union had recognised Tinubu with an award for the intervention a few weeks earlier.
“They have started receiving alerts and praying for Mr. President. In fact, the President was given an Award for this by the workers’ union a few weeks ago,” he said.
The aviation minister further accused Atiku of taking credit for decisions made by the Obasanjo administration when convenient while distancing himself from responsibility at other times.
“Yet you sit down there and pontificate? It’s only the younger ones who don’t know your history you can attempt to hoodwink, but we will expose you to them. You cannot disguise your inordinate ambition in a cloud of rhetorical gibberish,” Keyamo said.
He added, “When it is convenient for you, you claim some credit of the Obasanjo-Atiku government and when not convenient, you say Obasanjo was in charge and not you as Vice-President. The proper posturing of a con artist!”
Boluwatife Enome
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