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13 December, 2005
The ICEM expresses sadness and grief on news of the death of PENGASSAN President Uche Okoro in an airline crash Saturday, 10 December, in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. Comrade Okoro was one of the 108 passengers killed when a commercial airliner crashed on approach to the Port Harcourt airport.
Having the distinction of serving as president of both Nigeria’s white-collar oil and gas workers’ union, PENGASSAN, and the blue-collar union, NUPENG, Okora was a grass-roots organizer and activist who stood for free and democratic trade unions in Nigeria. His life-long dedication to democratic principles and fairness to workers, particularly during the Abacha military regime, proved invaluable in building Nigeria’s oil unions, as well as today’s Nigerian labour movement.
He became president of PENGASSAN in 2005. He left the blue-collar ranks of NUPENG when he was promoted to senior staff of the oil company employing him. He was seen as a unifying force between PENGASSAN and NUPENG, as well as all of labour in Nigeria.
ICEM General Secretary Fred Higgs, in a letter to PENGASSAN, called Okora a “fierce defender of workers’ interests in Nigeria and all of Africa. I am sure that both (PENGASSAN and NUPENG), and civil society as a whole in Nigeria, will miss Comrade Okora’s presence.”