23 March, 2009
Two ICEM Nigerian oil workers’ affiliates, NUPENG and PENGASSAN, are ready to shut down the Niger Delta’s oil and gas industry beginning early on Wednesday, 25 March, because of government indifference toward rescinding a plan to deregulate the downstream sector.
The unions, together with their national labour centres – the Nigerian Labour Congress and the Trades Union Congress – issued a 21-day strike notice on 3 March following the decision by the Presidential Steering Committee on the Global Financial Crisis to divest the government of its four refineries. The committee’s policy announcement also means withdrawing all petroleum subsidies to Nigeria’s citizens.
The industrial action will come in the form of a three-day warning strike. The strike is also aimed at growing insecurity in the Niger Delta region for oil workers, who have become targets of kidnappings.
According to an action plan drawn up by the unions joint National Executive Council, “all operations/ services are to be safely shut down beginning from midnight of 24 March. There should be no gathering of any kind by members during the strike. All members not in field/offshore locations should stay at home during the strike.
“Members in field/offshore locations shall bring down the operation within the days and remain at those locations.”
The strike is also in protest to outsourcing of 21 export terminals by the government and a continuing dispute at Conoil-Belbop, a publicly-listed oil and gas exploration company, as well as a marketer of petroleum products. The company has been engaged in blatant union-busting since 2007.
Peter Akpatason
Regarding the sell off of the refineries and removal of fuel subsidies, NUPENG President Peter Akpatason argued that “the timing of the deregulation is very wrong” and it is being proposed at “a period when salaries are stagnant and the value of a falling naira is working against Nigerians and would inflict hardship.”
Akpatason added, “Our major concern is that we are increasingly seeing a situation where people with little or no knowledge about the petroleum industry are being charged with formulating policies for the sector.”
Former NUPENG General Secretary Frank Ovie Korkori also lent his voice against deregulation. He called the government’s plans “too simplistic, (too) pedestrian. (If) they deregulate now, you will see free market methodology Nigerian style and I don’t support that because you cannot have a limitless or blanket deregulation in any economy.”
Bayo Olowoshile
PENGASSAN General Secretary Bayo Olowoshile said protest rallies began simultaneously late last week by oil and gas workers in Lagos, Port Harcourt, Kaduna, Asaba, and the capital city of Abuja in preparation for the warning strike. Today, a final protest rally is scheduled for Abuja.
In other Nigerian news last week, the Investments and Securities Tribunal granted an interim injunction for a restraining order against the country’s Securities and Exchange Commission. The injunction is aimed at preventing the agency from divesting its 60% stake in the former downstream operations of Texaco, now Chevron Nigeria Holdings. The injunction expires 7 April. PENGASSAN is one of several bidders for the downstream operations of the company.