Trouble breaks out at Dangote Refinery as NUPENG officials confronts ‘naval police’
By Adeola Atanda
There are indication that a disagreement took place between officials of the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) and billionaire oil investor, Sayuu Idris Dantata at the Dangote Refinery and Petrochemical Company, in Lekki, Lagos, on Thursday.
Williams Akporeha and Afolabi Olawale NUPENG’s national president and general secretary respectively, released a statement in which they alleged that Dantata, who owns MRS Oil, called armed naval police on members of the union for trying to get tanker truck drivers working for the company to comply with its rules.
The NUPENG officials alleged that Dantata ordered the drivers to remove the union’s stickers pasted on their trucks, as well as encouraged them to enter into the gantry forcefully, without recourse to NUPENG officials on ground at the refinery.
Due to their resistance, the union leaders claimed the incident degenerated into an altercation between their officials and the tanker drivers.
In their statement, they urged their “members” to be “on red alert for the resumption of the suspended nationwide industrial action and calling on the Nigeria Labour Congress, Trade Union Congress, all Regional and Global Working people and Civil Society Organizations to rise in support and solidarity against this threat of the Capitalist world.”
Cornet News reports that both the Dangote Refinery and Petrochemical Limited and the NUPENG, on Monday, reached an agreement based on which the latter called off its strike action. The union’s initial grouse was the company’s policy barring drivers of its freshly acquired CNG-enabled trucks from joining the union. But, at the peace meeting the Ministry of Labour and Productivity brokered, the company agreed to allow its drivers unionise without intimidation.
