1 month ago
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The apex bluish sociocultural group, the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), has powerfully condemned what it describes arsenic sustained attempts to undermine the operations of the Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals Company located successful Ibeju-Lekki, Lagos.
ACF raised concerns implicit what it termed “thinly disguised sabotage” targeting Nigeria’s largest indigenous crude lipid processing facility.
In a connection issued by its National Publicity Secretary, Prof. T. A. Muhammad-Baba, the ACF expressed interest implicit a signifier of obstacles confronting the Dangote Refinery from inception to its existent operational stage.
According to the Forum, these challenges person included regulatory reddish tape, proviso constraints from the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC), merchandise pricing issues, and interference from commercialized unions and selling associations.
The ACF peculiarly singled retired the roles of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN), the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG), and the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN), accusing them of engaging successful disruptive actions, including picketing and threats, that person further destabilised the refinery’s operations.
Despite the question of opposition, the Forum noted that Alhaji Aliko Dangote, the proprietor of the refinery, had remained resolute and commended his perseverance successful the look of “coordinated resistance” from entrenched interests, whom the ACF described arsenic a cabal determined to support power implicit Nigeria’s petroleum worth chain.
“It is becoming progressively wide that determination are subterranean forces determined to spot this indigenous world-class concern installation fail,” the connection said. “This reflects the aforesaid patterns that person ensured the nonaccomplishment of Nigeria’s 4 publically owned refineries.”
Regarding labour national agitation, the ACF acknowledged workers’ law close to unionise but took objection to what it described arsenic PENGASSAN’s “coercive” propulsion to unit refinery unit into national membership. The Forum insisted that national rank is simply a idiosyncratic choice, not an imposition.
Backing the Dangote Group’s edifice to ineligible enactment to safeguard its operations, the ACF faulted PENGASSAN for allegedly flouting a subsisting tribunal bid restraining it from disrupting the refinery’s activities. It described the union’s defiance arsenic a nonstop affront to Nigeria’s judicial strategy and a unsafe precedent successful its concern relations landscape.
The radical besides threw its value down caller comments by Senator Adams Oshiomhole and Senator Mohammed Ali Ndume, who advised that the refinery should beryllium fixed clip to stabilise earlier immoderate signifier of labour unionism is introduced. “You cannot unionise a workplace inactive successful its operational infancy,” the ACF argued.
In a broader nationalist context, the ACF warned that the continued harassment of the Dangote Refinery could nonstop antagonistic signals to some home and planetary investors. It called for the refinery to beryllium designated arsenic a strategical nationalist plus worthy of extortion nether Nigeria’s nationalist information framework.
To this end, the Forum urged the Federal Government to commence the process of compiling a National Register of Strategic Assets, comprising some nationalist and backstage assemblage investments. According to the ACF, this would shield specified facilities from actions and actors detrimental to the country’s economical security.
Furthermore, the ACF called for establishing a judicial committee of enquiry to analyse repeated onslaught actions targeting cardinal nationalist and backstage assemblage institutions. It said this would assistance uncover those down what it sees arsenic an organised run to derail Nigeria’s concern progress.
The Forum, therefore, urged labour unions to debar actions that could sabotage indigenous concern efforts. “Labour indispensable beryllium vigilant and discerning. The existent force whitethorn not beryllium wrong our shores, but outer interests moving successful collaboration with section actors to support Nigeria babelike and underdeveloped,” the connection concluded.
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