AS the 21-day ultimatum issued to the Federal Government by the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) ended by midnight on Thursday, the union has asked its members to commence a nationwide strike immediately.
Disclosing this to the Nigerian Tribune in a telephone interview was the President of the union, Comrade Peter Akpatason, after a meeting with the acting Managing Director of the NNPC, Alhaji Abubakar Yar�Adua. Akpatason explained that the strike had to go on until the Federal Government was ready to address all issues raised by the union.
The oil workers are demanding for the rehabilitation of roads nationwide, constant supply of products to NNPC depots at stipulated prices and erection of road signs at appropriate parts of the highways.
They also want the provision of parking space for trucks travelling from one part of the country to the other. Comrade Akpatason said that the Federal Government had kept quiet until the expiration of the ultimatum, adding that �there is no way we can fold our arms and be watching.�
According to him, �though the Minister of Energy (Petroleum) is currently holding a crucial meeting with the union, our members are bent on not suspending the indefinite strike until they achieve their aims for embarking on the strike, so we are appealing to the government to act fast and solve the problems at hand.�
The NUPENG President said �we have expected the Federal Government to act on our demands for too long. Despite the ultimatum, they did not deem it fit to invite us for any talk until the expiration of our ultimatum because of their style of wasting people�s valuable time, and we want this to stop.�
Meanwhile, most of the NNPC depots in the country did not load on Thursday due to the directive from their national secretariat and those that started loading in morning were ordered to stop in the afternoon.
At the NNPC, Ibadan, workers were seen milling around, while most of the trucks were parked waiting for the corporation to commence loading.
A drive through some parts of Ibadan showed that there were long queues in some filling stations, while some stations had stopped selling the product apparently because they were not sure of when the strike would be called off.
As of press time, the National Executive of NUPENG was meeting with the Minister of Energy (Petroleum) in Abuja.