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12 August, 2005ICEM News release No. 80/1998
The government-imposed "sole administrator" has now left the headquarters of the Nigerian oilworkers' union NUPENG and the democratically elected union leadership has moved back in. This follows a NUPENG Congress and elections yesterday.
The headquarters of the oilworkers' union PENGASSAN is also understood to be back in the union's control. The "sole administrator" there withdrew ahead of next week's PENGASSAN Congress and elections.
The government administrators had been running the two unions ever since the late military dictator Sani Abacha ousted their real leaderships at gunpoint in 1994, as he moved to crush a nationwide oilworkers'strike.
Re-elected as NUPENG General Secretary yesterday was Frank Kokori. The new NUPENG President is B.B. Awe.
Kokori and PENGASSAN General Secretary Milton Dabibi were imprisoned without trial under the Abacha regime. Their release this June followed a sustained worldwide campaign led by the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), to which the two unions are affiliated.
"The NUPENG headquarters has been left in a bad state," Kokori told ICEM UPDATE today. "My first task will be to get the basic infrastructure back in and put our administration back on its feet."
The ICEM had continued to press for the ending of government intervention in the two unions. "Democratic control is essential to the revival of these two important Nigerian unions," commented ICEM General Secretary Vic Thorpe today. "We greatly welcome the freeing of PENGASSAN and NUPENG and look forward to working with them again for the good of workers in Nigeria and worldwide."
The headquarters of the oilworkers' union PENGASSAN is also understood to be back in the union's control. The "sole administrator" there withdrew ahead of next week's PENGASSAN Congress and elections.
The government administrators had been running the two unions ever since the late military dictator Sani Abacha ousted their real leaderships at gunpoint in 1994, as he moved to crush a nationwide oilworkers'strike.
Re-elected as NUPENG General Secretary yesterday was Frank Kokori. The new NUPENG President is B.B. Awe.
Kokori and PENGASSAN General Secretary Milton Dabibi were imprisoned without trial under the Abacha regime. Their release this June followed a sustained worldwide campaign led by the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), to which the two unions are affiliated.
"The NUPENG headquarters has been left in a bad state," Kokori told ICEM UPDATE today. "My first task will be to get the basic infrastructure back in and put our administration back on its feet."
The ICEM had continued to press for the ending of government intervention in the two unions. "Democratic control is essential to the revival of these two important Nigerian unions," commented ICEM General Secretary Vic Thorpe today. "We greatly welcome the freeing of PENGASSAN and NUPENG and look forward to working with them again for the good of workers in Nigeria and worldwide."