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23 August, 2006
Nigerian oil workers’ unions NUPENG and PENGASSAN demand the immediate release of a comrade recently kidnapped in Bayelsa State. Nelson Ujeya, the Community Liaison Officer for Shell Petroleum Development Company Ltd, a trade union member of white-collar PENGASSAN, was abducted on 8 August following an official visit to the Letugbene community to examine community projects.
A NUPENGASSAN union communiqué said the kidnapping occurred “in the full glare of a team of senior Bayelsa State Government officials” following the coordinated visit with officials to Letugbene.
The two ICEM affiliates demanded in the statement “that the Government and good people of Bayelsa should immediately produce our member whom they invited to a Community-related assignment.”
“On our part, considering the escalation of kidnapping and other violent acts in the Niger Delta Region, we are under tremendous pressure to take action that will guarantee the safety of lives and properties of our members.”
In Nigeria, NUPENG and PENGASSAN have been consistent in the call for a stop to the senseless kidnappings of oil workers’ of any nationality, but also for state and federal governments, as well as oil industry enterprises, to do more inside Niger Delta communities.
The two unions, operating under the aegis NUPENGASSAN, call for education and skill development, and other meaningful social protections that improve the quality of life in these oil-rich areas. The ICEM stands behind the efforts of NUPENGASSAN, and applauds their trade union voice on this extremely serious problem in the global oil industry.