1 month ago
23
The Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) has declared a nationwide strike, accusing the Dangote Refinery of unlawfully dismissing much than 800 Nigerian workers for joining the union.
In a circular issued aft an exigency National Executive Council (NEC) gathering connected Saturday, September 27, 2025, and signed by its General Secretary, Lumumba Okugbawa, the relation ordered members to retreat their services from Sunday, September 28. The directive, it said, volition culminate successful a full nationwide shutdown of operations crossed lipid and state offices, companies, institutions, and agencies starting Monday, September 29.
“All PENGASSAN members moving crossed tract locations are to retreat services effectual 06:00hrs connected Sunday, 28 September 2025, and commence 24-hour prayers. This includes each power country operations, sheet operations, and outfield personnel,” the circular read.
It added, “All PENGASSAN members crossed each offices, companies, institutions, and agencies should retreat each services effectual 00:01 connected Monday, 29th of September, 2025. No involution whatsoever volition beryllium entertained crossed tract locations but wherever the information of unit and assets is astatine risk; specified clearance indispensable beryllium obtained from the National Secretariat.”
The national alleged that the refinery had replaced the dismissed workers with “over 2,000 Indians,” describing the improvement arsenic “an affront to each workers successful Nigeria.”
“All processes that impact state and crude proviso to Dangote Refinery should beryllium fto disconnected efficaciously immediately. All IOC branches indispensable ramp down state accumulation and proviso to Dangote Refinery and petrochemicals,” the NEC ordered.
It besides announced 24-hour supplication vigils and appealed for urgent authorities intervention, stressing that the onslaught would proceed until the dismissed workers were reinstated. “An wounded to 1 is an wounded to all. No antheral is bigger than our country,” the circular said.
The refinery’s management, however, denied carrying retired wide dismissals. In a statement,, the institution said it was undergoing an interior reorganisation to amended efficiency, insisting that “the bulk of its workforce remained Nigerian.”
LEADERSHIP reports that the latest enactment followed a September 24 missive successful which the refinery accused immoderate employees of sabotage allegedly threatening the operational information of the 650,000-barrel-per-day facility. While Dangote enactment the enactment down to information concerns, PENGASSAN maintained that astir 800 workers were unlawfully sacked and urged authorities agencies, labour unions, and different stakeholders to intervene, calling the substance 1 of “urgent nationalist importance.”
The standoff betwixt the refinery and the national has further strained relations betwixt the institution and the lipid workers’ movement, with the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) already astatine loggerheads with Dangote implicit labour rights and information standards.
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