By Victor Ahiuma- Young

As the 14-day ultimatum issued to the Federal Government by Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers, NUPENG, to address the protracted leadership crisis in the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, IPMAN, expires tomorrow, Minister of Labour and Productivity, Chief Emeka Wogu is today meeting with parties to the crisis in an efforts to avert the looming NUPENG strike.

Labour Vanguard gathered that Chief Wogu who had to cut short his assignments in Geneva, Switzerland where he was attending the ongoing International Labour Conference, ILC, for the meeting in a desperate bid to stop NUPENG from shutting the fuel distribution across the country as threatened.

According to investigations, leaders of NUPENG, who have been mobilising members nationwide for the planned strike, have equally scheduled their National Administrative Council, NAC, and National Executive Council, NEC, meetings for Abuja, between Monday, June 16 and 17, to review the outcome of today’s meeting.

One of the leaders of the union told Labour Vanguard that if today’s “meeting is unable to resolve the issue accordingly; the union would declare a nationwide strike next week.” NUPENG had on May 30, handed down a 14-day strike notice to the government over the IPMAN leadership crisis, threatening to stop fuel distribution should government fail to address its demand.

Specifically, the union called on government through the Chief Justice of the Federation and Chairman of the National Judicial Commission, NJC, Justice Alooma Mariam Muktar, to intervene in the perceived abuse of the judicial process, where an Abuja High Court gave a counter ruling to a subsisting Port Harcourt High ruling on the IPMAN leadership crisis, when an appeal was pending at the Court of Appeal in Port Harcourt.

At a briefing, President of NUPENG, Comrade Igwe Achese, warned that after the expiration of the ultimatum, if the matter was not resolved the union would have no choice than to direct members nationwide to stop distribution of products and other services to protect the interest of members who constituted over 60 percent of IPMAN.

According to him, “We have written several letters to the federal government, the NNPC, the State Security Services for their intervention but these efforts have not yielded any positive result due to the care free attitude of the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison – Madueke on the crisis.

There have been intervention and reconciliation by the Department of State Security Services but the outcome was never adhered to by the Aminu Abdukadir’s faction, which he sorted for. They deliberately refused to obey the court judgment of a Federal High Court in Port Harcourt that declared Chief Obasi Lawson as the IPMAN President.

”We advised the Elder Chinedu Okoronkwo faction to first of all go and vacate the judgment in favour of Chief Obasi Lawson, in a higher competent court of jurisdiction (Appeal Court) before they start parading themselves and their supporters as the National Executive of IPMAN.

Instead, the Okoronkwo faction went to a coordinate Court of jurisdiction, in the Federal Capital Territory in Abuja to get a kangaroo judgment, when they had already gone to the Court of Appeal on Chief Lawson Obasi’s judgment on the pronouncement of him as IPMAN President.