The Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) and National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) last week made good their promise to embark on the three-day warning strike. But the strike stretched beyond the three days as the unions and the federal government could not find a common ground until Thursday, December 18, 2014 when the strike was called off following a meeting that last more than 12 hours.
Days before the strike commenced, long queues at petrol stations across the country had resurfaced as vehicle owners and other consumers got into panic mode over the imminent scarcity and its adverse effects especially as the Christmas and New Year festivities beckon.
Fuel scarcity is a recurrent nightmare in Nigeria and Nigerians appeared to be used to the phenomenon. Hardly does any week pass by without one organized labour group or the other going on strike or threatening strike action. Nigeria should rank tops among the nations where strike has become so entrenched that even security operatives, at different times in the past, contemplated embracing the culture that was alien to the system.
Regrettably, industrial action has become the only potent weapon available to workers at all levels to agitate for improved conditions of service, press for payment of living wages and other entitlements upon which agreements have been struck with employers both in the public and private sectors. The recurrent strikes, in terms of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), must run into trillions of naira. Strike is an ill-wing that blows no one any good.
Nigeria is the proverbial land where those who live by the seaside wash their face with spittle. It is a nation that produces crude oil and exports it to be refined in foreign lands that do not have a drop of the liquid gold. Then, we import what originally was ours at a premium determined by the greed of oil merchants.
However, the quick resolution of the recent strike was expected. The federal government cannot afford any prolonged industrial dispute in that sector especially with the 2015 general elections inching close. The sector is the government’s Achilles heel. The NNPC in a belated press statement had assured that “Nigeria” has 32-day fuel stock with 17 vessels awaiting discharge”.
The corporation through its group corporate affairs manager, Mr. Ohi Alegbe, had stated, amidst the pervading tension, that NNPC’s downstream subsidiary, the Pipelines and Products Marketing
Company (PPMC), had over 32 stocks of petroleum products available for nationwide supply, even as he assured Nigerians that strike would not affect the sale and distribution of products during the festive period.
The bone of contention, this time around, included delay in the passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB); non implementation of the Nigeria Oil and Gas Industry Content Development (NOGICD) Act, global crude oil prices slump, deplorable state of access roads to refineries and oil depots, general insecurity in the country and compulsory deductions from workers’ salaries for the National Housing Fund (NHF). The unions also condemned what they described as indiscriminate termination of appointments of national officers of the unions, while demanding that government should put in place a more effective strategy to stop pipeline vandalism, crude oil theft and arrest the trend of casualization and contract staffing.
The demands of the unions as stated above reflect ironically the disturbing state of the nation’s petroleum sector. The government ought to have taken a drastic action on them. For, the current prevarication by government on the unions’ demands will corroborate the allegations that its officials are benefitting from the situation. Government should also avoid mixing the issues with politics. The polity is already overheated by disputes arising from party primaries and campaigns for 2015 general elections. To add fuel strike to the prevailing tension will exacerbate the situation. The unions’ demands should be treated as a national economic interest and only workable strategies should be adopted to make the sector function optimally.
