PENGASSAN vs Dangote refinery: Time for FG to act decisively

By asking members to proceed with industrial action and disconnect gas supply to Dangote Refinery, PENGASSAN has eventually revealed its ulterior motives as a destructive force in the oil industry. In a statement issued on Saturday by its general secretary, Lumumba Okugbawa, the union asked members working across field locations to withdraw services from 6am on Sunday, September 28. ‘’This includes all control room operations, panel operations and outfield personnel’’, according to the statement.

The directive also orders all PENGASSAN members across all offices, companies, institutions and agencies to withdraw services and specifically directs that all processes that involve gas and crude supply to Dangote Refinery ‘’should be let off effectively immediately’’. In other words, PENGASSAN has disrupted Nigeria’s crude oil business and is out to cripple the $20 billion refinery and return the country to the era of fuel importation and scarcity.

This is an act of economic sabotage, and I call on the federal government and law enforcement agencies to step in and truncate this criminal action by the trade union. From what I have read across many social media platforms, Nigerians are understandably horrified by what PENGASSAN wants to do.

At the centre of this dispute is the freedom of employers to operate their businesses without unions and the right of workers to unionise. The petrochemical company has recently fired 800 workers for engaging in trade unionism. While PENGASSAN wants Dangote Refinery to recall the 800 workers, the company insists that it does not want any worker to be involved in trade unionism. Nigeria’s trade union and international labour laws allow workers the freedom to join or refuse to join a trade union and employers the liberty to disallow unionism in their organisations.

That is why there is no ASUU in private universities and NUBIFE (National Union of Banks, Insurance and Financial Institution Employees) in privately-owned banks and insurance companies. NUBIFE was a very powerful union in the financial industry till the privatisation of the banks and insurance companies in the late 1980s and early 1990s. NUBIFE fought and nearly crippled government-owned banks like Union Bank, Afribank, UBA and First Bank, which in those days, for all sorts of reasons. NUBIFE leaders were terror in those days, and they were dreaded and feared by management.

With privatisation, new investors and owners of banks were quick to disallow unionism in the industry. In place of unionism, workers were rewarded with a very attractive reward system. That’s why NUBIFE, a once-powerful trade union, is now almost nonexistent. Similarly, when the Esama of Benin, Chief Gabriel Igbenedion, founded the first private university in the country in 1988 (Igbenedion University), he made it clear that he didn’t want any staff member to join ASUU.

Till today, ASUU does not exist in any of the 149 private universities in the country. Union activities are also restricted or disallowed in other industries like aviation, tourism and even electricity, where private investors are the major operators. An employer has the right to refuse the existence of trade unions in their businesses, and a staff member has the right to walk away from any employer who doesn’t want unionism. Why is Dangote Refinery treated differently and not allowed to the liberty to do away with unionism? Why have certain interest groups, including PENGASSAN, NUPENG, and even industry regulators, been fighting Dangote Refinery since it began production last year?

As President Obasanjo was preparing to leave office in 2007, he offered to sell the moribund Port Harcourt refinery to Aliko Dangote, and the man agreed to buy. But it was these same unions and the NLC that rose up and opposed the sale, prompting the businessman to move on to establish his own, which is the largest single-train refinery in the world, while the government-owned refineries continued to gulp billions of dollars in endless fraudulent turnaround maintenance. While the government refineries waste away, the two trade unions continue to profit from check-off levies paid by members who work in the moribund plants. The members continue to earn salaries and even get promoted without working, while the unions and their leaders continue to profit from dues and levies.

By calling on members to disrupt gas supply to Dangote Refinery, PENGASSAN is out to kill the $20 billion investment. It’s criminal, unpatriotic and economically disastrous. No investor will invest in any country where a union leader can easily destroy a multibillion-dollar private investment without cause. No serious nation will even allow such unions to survive.

Even after disengaging the 800 workers, Dangote says ‘’over 3,000 Nigerians continue to work actively’’ at the refinery, in addition to indirect employees, suppliers and contractors who make a living from the plant. The federal government should do everything to protect Dangote Refinery from economic saboteurs and parasitic interest groups.