PENGASSAN: Why we accepted redeployment of sacked workers to subsidiaries of Dangote Group

The Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) says its members did not initially sign any agreement to resolve its dispute with the Dangote refinery. 

On September 26, PENGASSAN instructed its members to embark on a nationwide strike over the dismissal of workers by Dangote refinery.

Five days later, PENGASSAN suspended its nationwide strike — after the Dangote Group agreed to redeploy the workers sacked by its subsidiary, Dangote refinery, following the federal government’s intervention.

Speaking on Channels Television’s ‘The Morning Brief,’ Festus Osifo, PENGASSAN’s president, said the agreement was not signed because it did not agree with all of its terms.

“First, if you see that agreement, we did not sign the agreement. Normally it was supposed to be signed by three parties. We did not sign it because we felt that some things in that agreement, we are not quite okay with it,” he said.

“So it wasn’t really an agreement per se, but it was a communique issued by the chief conciliator of the federation, that is the minister of labour and employment.

“But when we subjected it to our NEC, we looked at it. It depends on what we are prioritising.

“Some of the media houses, but not channels, were out there that the only thing we were interested in was our check off dues. But we said no.”

However, Osifo argued that the association was interested in the livelihood of the sacked workers, and how they would “take care of their family”.

“We prioritised that over anything else. But on the table, that was not our position. Our position was very clear,” he said.

‘DANGOTE REFINERY DIDN’T WANT TO TAKE BACK SACKED WORKERS’

Osifo said that although the association’s stance was for the refinery to take back the dismissed workers, “Dangote’s position was that he wasn’t going to take them back at all”.

“So we had two diverse positions. But the Chief Conciliator of the Federation now came with the other government functionaries. So they now did this as a middle way,” he said.

“So it was actually the government that came up with this. Not that Dangote on its own at the beginning also agreed with this point.

“We had our extreme position; they had their extreme position. But government came in and said this is what we think would work.

“So when we subjected this to our NEC, our NEC prioritised first the livelihood and the sustenance of these people above anything else.”

To demonstrate to the world that the union is not about check off dues, Osifo said “we needed to send a signal that the release that Dangote did was totally not correct to say these people have sabotaged the process”.

“Because if we had allowed that sabotage to stand, what it means is that these 800 plus people, they can’t even look for a job anywhere tomorrow. That toga of saboteurs will remain with them forever,” he said.

“So that has been cleared. So for us, that is a very big win because these young engineers just left university yesterday, and you are calling them saboteurs. Some of them are 25 to 30 years old; they have like 30 years more to work.”

Before suspending the strike, Osifo said the association’s national executive council (NEC) reviewed its decision and prioritised “the family first before anything else”.