Nigeria’s white-collar oil workers union on Tuesday protested the murder of two colleagues in the restive oil hub of the Niger Delta and gave the government two weeks to hunt down the killers.
“We have issued a 14-day ultimatum to government and the security agencies to fish out the killers of two of our members,” said Bayo Olowosile, secretary of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association (PENGASSAN).
The duo, staff of a subsidiary of the state-run Nigerian National Petroleum (NNPC), were seized by unknown men on March 13.
Their bodies were found on Saturday in in southern Delta State, Olowosile told AFP.
“PENGASSAN …calls for full investigation of this cruel murder and the resultant prosecution of those responsible within 14 days failing which our association may be compelled to take whatever action deemed appropriate to oblige government to fish out the culprits,” he said.
In February 2009, the union threatened to call a strike to protest the rising wave of killings and kidnappings of oil workers in the region, but the action never took off after government promises to address their grievances.
For more than three years, the Niger Delta, home to Nigeria’s multi-billion-dollar oil and gas industry, has been rocked by violent attacks and kidnappings targeting oil companies, workers and their families.
Some are carried out by militants claiming to be fighting for a fairer share of the region’s oil wealth for local people, others by criminal gangs out to make ransom money.
A government amnesty deal saw a brief lull in violence and kidnappings until the end of January when a leading rebel group called off its ceasefire it declared last year.
The surge in violent attacks slashed crude production in the world’s eighth largest producer to 1.5 million barrels a day, from a peak of 2.6 million at the start of 2006.