One of the former workers of the defunct Nigeria Airways who attended the ongoing verification exercise preceding the payment of their N22 billion final settlement expected to commence today, Wednesday gave up the ghost while at the premises for the exercise.

The deceased who was brought to the verification centre in an ambulance from an undisclosed hospital passed away shortly as he was not able to undergo his verification before he passed on and his corpse was hurriedly taken in the same ambulance to possibly the mortuary.

Besides the death of the man, also around for the exercise were very elderly, sick men and women. Some of them were wheeled to the place while others came in crutches even as their situations were not helped as the whole exercise was rowdy with many of them proceeding from the first point of checking their names.

After that, they were asked to proceed to the second stage which was to get a long form in which they were asked to fill their bio-data and other information required of them.

The third stage is the data capture area where their entitlements are spelt out and computed for final payment.

Over 1,000 out of the 5, 968 workers of the defunct Nigeria Airways, however, may start receiving their severance benefits from today, Wednesday fifteen years after the airline was liquidated.

This is coming following the verification exercise which the Presidential Initial on Continuous Audit (PICA) commenced on Monday and expected to end next week Monday.

The verifications are expected to end October 22, 2018.

•Excerpted from Tribune report

•Ex-workers of the defunct Nigeria Airways Ltd. on the queue for verification and payment of their entitlements at the Sky Care Catering Complex, Murtala Muhammed Airport, Ikeja, Lagos, on Monday, October 15, 2018