A masterclass in how to liquidate an airline, vanish the assets, and still somehow owe people money for 22 years
There is a particular genius, the kind you can only truly appreciate from a safe distance, in being able to shut down a company, sell off all its assets, and still not have enough money to pay the people who worked there. It takes decades of institutional creativity, a rotating cast of Very Busy Presidents, and the kind of bureaucratic ingenuity that could only flourish on Nigerian soil.
Welcome to the Nigeria Airways pension scandal. Pull up a chair. The workers have been waiting since 2003, you can surely spare five minutes.
From the Skies to the Gutter
Nigeria Airways was once a proud institution. Founded in 1958, at its peak in the early 1980s it boasted a fleet of about 30 aircraft, including Boeing 737s, 747s, and, rather poetically, the last McDonnell Douglas DC-10 ever built. Nigeria was flying to London, New York, Rome, Jeddah. The pilots wore crisp uniforms. The engineers kept the engines running. Nigeria was, briefly and magnificently, in the sky.
Then came the slow, magnificent unravelling. By the mid-1980s, overstaffing had reached 8,500 employees, with monthly earnings of approximately $5 million against expenditures of $5.175 million. A deficit of $175,000 a month. Every single month. For years. One admires the commitment.
By 2003, the airline had accumulated debts of approximately $528 million, a figure the government had watched grow while injecting around $200 million into the airline during its final decade. They were essentially paying to keep the coffin warm.
In 2003, President Olusegun Obasanjo did what any responsible head of state would do when faced with a bloated, debt-ridden national embarrassment: he liquidated it overnight. Over 6,000 employees lost everything, jobs, pensions, and their future. The government promised payment. The law demanded it.
Spoiler: the money did not arrive on time. Or the next time. Or the time after that.
Follow the Money (If You Can Find It)
Here is where the story becomes genuinely instructive for students of Nigerian governance. Assets were sold. Prime properties in London, Rome, and Lagos changed hands. Valuable international routes and landing slots disappeared into the global aviation market. Billions were generated.
And yet, and this is the part that requires a deep breath, Nigeria Airways property was allegedly sold as scrap, and bought by government officials. The liquidator, when confronted about payment, reportedly threw up his hands and said he had nothing left to pay anyone with. Which is an interesting position for someone who has just overseen the sale of significant assets.
While the Obasanjo government that approved the liquidation wasted no time in settling foreign workers across Europe and America, apparently for fear of violating the labour laws of those countries, workers in Nigeria and West Africa were left to wait for over a decade.
Let that sink in. Nigeria was terrified of British labour law. It was apparently not terrified of Nigerian labour law. Or Nigerian workers. Or Nigerian conscience.
The Presidential Relay Race (Nobody Wants the Baton)
What followed was one of the most extraordinary games of hot-potato in the history of public administration.
Under President Yar’Adua, the government agreed to foot the pension payments directly. Progress! Then President Jonathan arrived and, according to former workers, was advised by people with “bad advisers, that remarkable Nigerian euphemism for corruption dressed in a suit, to send them back to the liquidator. The same liquidator. The one who had already said there was nothing left. Even Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, a woman celebrated internationally for her financial acumen, reportedly pointed these elderly ex-workers back toward the empty well.
The government acknowledged a total severance package should be ₦78 billion, but when it was written to the president, it was arbitrarily reduced to ₦45 billion without justifiable reason. Forty-five billion naira for over 6,000 workers whose airline was stripped to the bone while they watched. The remaining ₦33 billion? That was for future presidents to worry about.
In 2018, three major aviation unions threatened to ground operations nationwide. President Buhari approved ₦22 billion as a partial payout. Partial. In 2018. For people who had been waiting since 2003.
Still Waiting, Still Dying
As of April 2026, a former Nigeria Airways pilot is still holding press conferences on behalf of more than 5,000 redundant employees and retirees, noting that some of the former employees are now over 100 years old. One hundred years old. These men and women flew planes when Nigeria had hope in its chest and wind beneath its wings. They are now waiting, at 100, for the government to locate a cheque.
Many of the affected former workers are now elderly citizens aged between 65 and 101 years, pilots, engineers, cabin crew, technicians, administrators, and accountants who helped build the nation’s aviation industry.
In July 2025, the Federal Government under President Tinubu finally approved ₦45 billion in outstanding pensions, following sustained pressure from aviation unions and interventions by the National Assembly. The announcement was made. There was much rejoicing. A minute of silence was observed for those who had already died.
And then, as recently as April 2026, former workers were still holding press conferences decrying that the approved ₦36 billion gratuity and severance remains unpaid.
Approving money and actually paying money, it turns out, are two entirely different sports in Nigeria.
So Was It Incompetence or Calculation?
The video by Historic Capital poses the question plainly: was this incompetence, or a calculated system?
The honest answer is: does it matter? Whether by design or spectacular dysfunction, the outcome is identical. Properties vanished. Routes were sold. Assets changed hands into the hands of the well-connected. And the workers, the pilots and engineers and communicators who gave their working lives to a national dream, were left to hold press conferences at 100, begging for money that was legally theirs before the millennium.
In Britain, this would have triggered parliamentary inquiries, judicial reviews, and at minimum three very angry front pages in the Guardian. In the United States, there would be class action lawsuits with very aggressive lawyers in very expensive suits. In Nigeria, there were promises. Many, many promises.
The Nigeria Airways pension scandal is not simply a story about one airline. It is a story about the cost of power, who wields it, who benefits from it, and who gets left standing at the departures gate long after every flight has gone.
The runway was sold. The planes were sold. The routes were sold.
The workers are still waiting for their tickets home.
Follow the money. If you can find it.
Centre for Nigeria Progress 