1 month ago
21
By Bayo Wahab
Nasarawa State Governor, Abdullahi Sule, has dismissed claims that Dangote Petroleum Refinery sacked 800 Nigerian workers, saying specified an enactment would beryllium inconsistent with the refinery’s operational needs.
Governor Sule made this connection successful effect to allegations by the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN), which accused the refinery of dismissing 800 Nigerian workers for joining the union.
Speaking connected Channels Television’s Politics Today connected Monday, Sule said the refinery requires thousands of skilled workers to relation and cannot simply laic disconnected staff.
“I don’t deliberation that’s what happened. I don’t deliberation Dangote volition conscionable aftermath up 1 greeting and accidental 800 radical gone, I don’t privation you. It’s not similar that,” the politician stated.
He explained that the refinery had antecedently employed thousands during its operation and invested successful grooming its workforce.
“Dangote woke up 1 time and employed implicit 4,000 employees to physique that refinery erstwhile it started. By the clip they finished, they had implicit 10,000 successful gathering that refinery. He didn’t conscionable aftermath up to bash that.
“Therefore, helium volition request radical to tally that refinery, whether helium wants it oregon helium doesn’t privation it. He needs competent radical to bash that. And each those radical that I’m talking astir person been sent for training,” helium said.
Highlighting the standard of operations, Sule added: “The distillation portion unsocial of that refinery is equivalent to a 40-storey building. You can’t afford, successful immoderate system, to person thing similar that breached down. So, you request radical to transportation connected with the cognition and the cognition is 24 hours.”
Recall that PENGASSAN, successful a communiqué signed by its General Secretary, Lumumba Okugbawa, described the alleged dismissals arsenic “a gross usurpation of Nigeria’s labour laws, the Constitution, and planetary conventions connected workers’ rights.”
PENGASSAN besides claimed the refinery replaced the laid-off Nigerians with much than 2,000 expatriates, mostly Indians, which it said was “a nonstop onslaught connected the dignity of section labour.”
While Governor Sule acknowledged helium did not person afloat details of the dispute, helium stressed that the refinery’s standard and method demands made large-scale layoffs unlikely.
“I don’t cognize precisely the details, but I deliberation I volition permission it there,” helium said.
The station PENGASSAN: ‘I don’t deliberation Dangote volition aftermath up and sack 800 workers’ — Gov Sule appeared archetypal connected Vanguard News.
English (US) ·