BY VICTOR AHIUMA-YOUNG
Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria,  PENGASSAN, has threatened to a national strike to force government’s to end kidnapping and insecurity in the country.

The association vowed to shut down all oil and gas installations and operations in Nigeria, if governments at the federal and state levels did not develop political will to end  resurgence of kidnapping and insecurity.

PENGASSAN noted plans had been concluded to convene an emergency National Executive Council, NEC, meeting next week to ratify its decision to stop all exploration, exploitation, and exportation and production activities of crude.

Speaking on resurgence of insecurity in the Niger Delta and various attacks by the Boko Haram sect in the North as well as other communal clashes, PENGASSAN President, Comrade Babatunde Ogun, condemned the inability of government to curtail attacks on innocent Nigerians by the kidnappers and hoodlums.

He said, “It seems the collaborations between our association and government has broken down. We have not seen any seriousness on the part of government to end insecurity in the country. Our members are been attacked and kidnapped on daily basis.

We have made various representations to government on insecurity and even our protest on the murder of two of our members at Mosorga in 2009 has not been attended to. This government has failed us in terms of security and we are ready to pull out our members from all the locations because our members’ well being is very important and can never be compromised.”

He recalled that an ultimatum was given by PENGASSAN and its sister union in the oil and gas industry, the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers, NUPENG, in 2009 to shut down all oil and gas installations in the country.
He said the strike was suspended because of intervention of the Federal Government, former National Security Adviser, NSA, and former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Dimeji Bankole.

“All the various committees set up by the government to look into our grievances have died a natural death without any valuable result or conclusion because of lack of commitment from the government. It shows the insincerity on the part of the government in attending to our issues, when the crude stops to flow, the leaders thinking faculty will function properly,” he said.

Ogun lamented government inability to manage industrial relations issues properly and hence making the unions in the oil and gas industry to suffer because of high cost of litigation.