Opinion: The Coming Death Of NUPENG

A tempest is gathering implicit 1 of Nigeria’s astir almighty labour unions, and the thunderclap whitethorn soon bring its extortion down. Once upon a time, the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) wore the robe of a fearless defender of workers’ rights. Today, it is accused of having shed that robe, donned a silk agbada, and recast itself arsenic a cartel, a cabal fattened connected levies, intimidation, and extortion.

The elders of the Petroleum Tanker Drivers (PTD), the precise backbone of the union, are nary longer whispering; they are shouting from the rooftops, demanding the resignation of NUPENG’s apical brass. Their complaint expanse reads similar the publication of a Nollywood governmental thriller: corruption, maltreatment of office, intimidation, and dragging a once-respected assemblage into nationalist ridicule. But scratch beneath the drama, and you’ll find a darker truth: NUPENG nary longer behaves similar a union. It behaves similar a cartel, holding Nigeria’s substance proviso by the pharynx portion sipping champagne successful first-class jets.

The database of sins is long: harassment of drivers, defiance of tribunal orders, amerciable levies astatine depots, and the conscription of members into street-level enforcers. Its notorious N39,000 “gate fee” per tanker truck, imposed without law, regulation, oregon shame, generates billions. A hidden tax. A shadiness treasury. None of it declared, nary of it accountable.

Let’s bash the math. One substance motortruck carries 33,000 liters. At N39,000 per truck, that’s astir N1.18 slapped connected each liter. Nigeria consumes astir 50 cardinal liters daily. That means NUPENG rakes successful N59 cardinal a day, N1.8 cardinal a month, astir N22 cardinal a year, wealth that does not participate the nation’s coffers. At state terminals, it is adjacent worse. Members of the Nigeria Liquefied and Compressed Gases Association (NLCGA) kick of paying N72,000 per motortruck earlier loading. That’s different N3 cardinal successful a year’s sweep, diverted consecutive into the union’s opaque vaults.

This isn’t commercialized unionism. It is equipped robbery with an invoice. And yet, the top calamity is reserved for the tanker drivers themselves—the men whose sweat and spilled humor lubricate the nation’s substance economy. They thrust rickety trucks connected death-trap highways. They conflict fatigue, accidents, fires, and the regular gamble of survival. For this, they get nary pension, nary insurance, nary fallback plan. Should calamity strike, they are discarded similar worn tires. NUPENG has nary program for them. Worse still, alternatively of protection, they are harassed by touts waving NUPENG’s banner, squeezed for levies connected each road corner.

How galore of NUPENG’s executives person ever driven a tanker crossed Ore oregon Lokoja? None! Yet from their air-conditioned offices, they nonstop men into the tempest portion they themselves interval successful SUVs, backstage jets, and planetary conferences, not the drivers they assertion to represent.

As if that were not enough, NUPENG besides deducts 1% of members’ salaries arsenic dues. Millions vanish monthly. Who audits these accounts? No one. Perhaps it is clip the Registrar of Trade Unions, oregon amended yet, the EFCC, asked to spot the books. But if past is immoderate guide, NUPENG’s effect volition beryllium arsenic predictable arsenic a severely written film: telephone a strike, endanger to illness the economy, and fell its fearfulness of accountability beneath the emblem of “workers’ rights.”

The information is not abstract. With 1 onslaught oregon blockade, NUPENG tin paralyze the nation. This looming menace casts a acheronian shadiness implicit the Dangote Petroleum Refinery, a $20 cardinal lifeline meant to extremity substance importation and stabilize the vigor market. If NUPENG’s extortion machinery hijacks Dangote’s planned 10,000-strong motortruck fleet, the imagination could curdle into a nightmare. A azygous period of disruption could bleed Nigeria of $1.3 billion.

Yet, alteration is brewing. A caller procreation of tanker drivers is rising, nary longer contented to beryllium pawns successful the games of national barons. The International Labour Organization (ILO) is clear: national rank indispensable beryllium voluntary, not coerced. NUPENG’s chokehold connected workers and businesses mocks Convention 87 connected Freedom of Association. Where the ILO envisions freedom, NUPENG enforces fear. Where it preaches transparency, NUPENG practices racketeering.

Can a cartel beryllium reformed? Can intimidation beryllium digitized? Can extortion beryllium fixed a caller overgarment of overgarment and rebranded arsenic “union work charge”?

Every liter of substance sold successful Nigeria contiguous bears an invisible tax, not levied by the authorities but by a fistful of national mandarins fattened connected impunity. That is not unionism; that is criminality dressed successful overalls.

The extremity of NUPENG successful its existent signifier is not a substance of if but when. The masquerade has danced excessively agelong successful the marketplace square. Nigerians merit a national that defends labor, not 1 that weaponizes i...