Fuel crisis looms as NUPENG others threaten strike over NNPC deal

By Simon EBEGBULEM, Benin City
FRESH industrial crisis in the nation’s oil industry is looming, following fresh threats by the Group Executive Councils of the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) and the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN), to down tools over what they described as alleged plans by the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) to sale/concessionalize some strategic business units in the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).

They alleged that the BPE had concluded plans to “surreptitiously transfer ownership and control of some carefully selected, performing and viable National Assets in the NNPC to certain surrogate foreign fronts that have been arranged by some privileged Nigerians to satisfy their parochial interests”.

In a communiqué signed by Comrade  Francis Johnson (Group Chairman, NNPC PENGASSAN), Comrade Richard Otovwievwiere ( Group Chairman, NNPC NUPENG), Comrade Olusegun Erinoso (Group Secretary, NNPC PENGASSAN) and Comrade Ahmed Tijjani Sani (Group Secretary NNPC NUPENG), made available to newsmen shortly after an emergency meeting in Benin City, the Unions disclosed that arrangements had been concluded by the BPE to sale NNPC business units such as NPDC, NGC, PPMC and the Refineries to some Nigerian politicians “using certain phony entities”.

The communiqué recalled that “similar clandestine and unpatriotic move was made by the same BPE in 2007/2008 which was roundly condemned by Nigerians when the Unions, both at the National and NNPC DEC levels, took a stand against it”.

The then President Umaru Yar’Adua swiftly hearkened to the voices of Nigerians and revoked the sales.
“The popular reason for the sales then was inefficiency, but today NPDC has developed Abura Field in OML 65 from 980 barrels of crude oil per day to 5,000bopd and has also successfully transited OPL 91 to OML 119,OPL 113 to OML 111 and several others are at advanced stages of development. NGC has attained an impressive capacity of about 503MMSCF/D of natural gas.

“Our refineries have successfully banished fuel queues through continuous production and efficient distribution by the PPMC, where o daily basis over one hundred and twenty numbers of 33,000 liter trucks leave Warri depot with petroleum products while the hitherto vandalized pipelines are also gradually being recharged with petroleum products across the nation”.

It, therefore, declared that “ the Group Executive Councils of the NNPC NUPENG & PENGASSAN do hereby condemn and reject in its entirety these latest clandestine moves of sale/concessioning of NNPC SUBs by the Federal Government including restructuring, unbundling, re_organization and in what ever other guise that are being presented.

“Accordingly, the Group Executive Councils of NNP NUPENG & PENGASSAN therefore revert to their previous positions in 2007/2008 of resort to various industrial actions in all our facilities across the nation until there is a complete rescind of this wicked, ill intentioned and unpatriotic clandestine move by the Federal Government” it declared.