THE three-day warning strike by the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) and the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG), which began on Wednesday, has been suspended.
This was the outcome of a meeting by the National Executive Council (NEC) and representatives of the Federal Government yesterday at Abuja.
The suspension of the strike was contained in a statement issued at the end of a joint National Executive Council (NEC) meeting of the both PENGASSAN and NUPENG.
The unions said that resolutions were informed by the report of meetings that were held at the instance of the Federal Ministry of Labour and Productivity with the stakeholders in the oil and gas sector on September 7 and 8 as well as between September 11 and 13.
The unions stated that after an exhaustive review of the meetings, they agreed, among other issues, on a proposal for the convening of a high-powered forum to discuss and agree on issues in contention.
The planning committee of the unions are to meet on September 21, to plan for a larger forum to discuss all industrial issues that led to the three-day warning strike.
They therefore directed all members of NUPENG and PENGSSAN to resume their normal duties from today.
The Deputy-General Secretary of PENGASSAN, Mr. Lumumba Okugbawa, confirmed the development in a telephone interview with The Guardian.
The unions had at a joint NEC meeting held on August 30, in Benin City, resolved to embark on the strike, following their allegation of incessant abduction and lack of security for their members in the Niger Delta.
They cited the killing of the Community Relations Officer of Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC), Mr. Nelson Ujeya, in a crossfire between suspected militants and a Joint Task Force personnel, as one of their grievances.
Other grievances listed by the oil workers in their statement were the sale of Eleme Petrochemical Company by the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) to a three-year-old company.
The workers also wanted government to halt the conversion of the Petroleum Training Institute (PTI) in Effurun, Delta State, to a campus of the University of Benin (UNIBEN).
It also wanted government to address the increasing vandalisation of oil pipelines and alleged increasing expatriate quota abuse.
And, apparently unaware of the suspension, the Oyo State chairman of NUPENG, Mr. Timothy Adebusuyi had yesterday morning insisted that the action would continue today.
Speaking with reporters in Ibadan, the state capital, Adebusuyi faulted the ongoing peace parley between the Federal Government; the Central Working Committee (CWC) of the unions. The CWC comprises all state chairmen of both unions and the PENGASSAN. Adebusuyi said that only the NEC including the 136 branches in the four zonal councils of the union in Lagos, Kaduna, Warri and Port Harcourt had the constitutional power to call off the strike.
The NUPENG boss, who described the strike as successful in the state said all major marketers in the metropolis were closed to customers while only a few independent marketers flouted the order by opening to motorists.
Said he: “All major marketers complied with the directive not to sell fuel, while only few independent marketers were selling fuel. We are monitoring them. Any stubborn station will not be allowed to lift fuel after the strike is called off. We have told them that they can sell water to the people and not fuel until midnight on Friday.”
According to him, various efforts made to the Federal Government to settle the matter were rebuffed while a request to make funds available for its members to convene a meeting to revisit the strike proved abortive.
“We called the first meeting where the decision to go on strike was taken at great cost to us and we don’t have such money again. The strike may be elongated should the government fail to provide money for us to call another meeting,” he said.
The union had on Wednesday issued a statement to all filling stations in Ibadan to close shop until the end of the warning strike.
The strike, according to the statement, followed the government’s inability to address the problems confronting the oil and gas workers.