NUPENG & PENGASSAN Threaten Nationwide Strike from January

Members of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria and National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas workers Tuesday threatened to commence a nationwide strike beginning from January.

Recall that the petroleum minister, Diesani Allison-Madueke, had announced that the Federal Government was working hard to complete the privatisation of the four refineries before the end of the first quarter of next year.

The oil and gas workers staged a protest at the headquarters of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, demanding the Federal Government to call the minister of petroleum resources, to rescind the decision or face massive fuel scarcity.

The NUPENG and PENGASSAN members said the shutting down of oil facilities from 2014 will be done if the Federal Government fails to reverse its plans to privatise the country’s four refineries.

“We are giving them (government) from now till December 24 to rescind their plan of privatising the refineries. We will allow travellers to be able to move from one destination to the other till the end of the year.” The PENGASSAN President, Mr. Babatunde Ogun, said.

He said Failure to retract the statement on planned privatisation will lead to a nationwide strike beginning from the first week of January 2014.

He however expressed optimism that government the plan as failure will result to complete grounding of activities in the sector.