Dangote vs NUPENG: Union insists on strike, meets FG, others today

The Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers on Sunday declared that it would still embark on strike beginning from today (Monday), despite the intervention of the Federal Government to address the grievances of the union.

NUPENG President, Williams Akporeha, confirmed that the Federal Government had reached out to the union on the need to avert the strike. He, however, insisted that the industrial action would go ahead, pending the outcome of the meeting with the government today (Monday).

The union had on Friday announced that it would begin an industrial action on September 8, 2025, a development that could lead to fuel scarcity. Its decision stemmed from the Dangote Petroleum Refinery’s plan to import 4,000 Compressed Natural Gas-powered trucks for direct fuel distribution to retailers.

Although the scheme, earlier scheduled to begin on August 15, was delayed by logistics challenges in China, the refinery said it would kick off once a substantial number of the trucks arrived.

But in a statement jointly signed by Akporeha and the General Secretary, Afolabi Olawale, on Friday, NUPENG accused the Dangote refinery of anti-labour practices that threatened the livelihoods of members of its Petroleum Tanker Drivers branch.

The union lamented that the refinery’s owner, Aliko Dangote, had insisted that new drivers for the imported trucks would not be allowed to join any union. It described the decision as an affront to freedom of association guaranteed under the 1999 Constitution and a breach of international labour conventions to which Nigeria is a signatory.

NUPENG recalled that it had held several meetings, alongside the Nigerian Association of Road Transport Owners, to persuade Dangote to reconsider. However, its appeals were allegedly ignored. The matter got to its climax when MRS oil firm, owned by Dangote’s cousin, Sayyu Dantata, reportedly began the recruitment of drivers for the CNG truck and compelled them to sign undertakings not to belong to any oil and gas union.

As a result, NUPENG said its members would stop fuel loading nationwide from Monday if the situation remained unresolved, saying the union would not stand by while jobs were being eroded.

In a bid to avert the strike, the Minister of Labour and Employment, Muhammad Dingyadi, announced on Sunday that he had summoned all parties to a conciliation meeting in Abuja. The intervention aims to defuse rising tensions over alleged anti-unionisation policies at the refinery.

In a statement signed by the ministry’s Head of Information and Public Relations, Patience Onuobia, Dingyadi appealed to NUPENG to suspend its planned shutdown of petroleum operations and called on the Nigeria Labour Congress to withdraw the “red alert” it issued in solidarity with oil workers.

“I have invited all the parties for a conciliation meeting tomorrow, Monday, September 8, 2025. Since I have intervened, I plead with NUPENG to rescind their decision to shut down the petroleum sector from tomorrow. I also appeal to the NLC to withdraw the red alert it issued to its affiliate unions to be on standby for a nationwide strike,” Dingyadi said.

The minister warned that industrial action in the petroleum sector would trigger widespread hardship across the country and inflict heavy losses on government revenue.

“The petroleum sector is very important to this country. It constitutes the core of the country’s economy. A strike in the petroleum sector, even for just a day, will have an adverse impact. It will not only lead to revenue losses running into billions of naira but also cause untold hardship for Nigerians,” he cautioned.

He also called on all stakeholders to allow peace to prevail, assuring that the government will broker a resolution acceptable to both labour and the private refinery. “The matter will be resolved amicably to the satisfaction of all the parties involved,” the minister stated.

No going back

But in a chat with one of our correspondents, the NUPENG president, who admitted that the union was invited by the government to a meeting on the matter, insisted that the group would begin its strike today.

Akporeha said the Federal Government and the Nigerian National Petroleum Company have reached out to the union over the planned strike. He, however, told The PUNCH that the intervention of the government was not enough to stop the planned strike.

“The Federal Government and the NNPC are reaching out, but there is nothing concrete yet,” Akporeha said. Asked if the strike would still start on Monday, Akporeha replied, “Yes, though the Minister of Labour has called for a meeting. The meeting will be held tomorrow (Monday) in Abuja. But the strike starts tomorrow morning as planned.”

Marketers back NUPENG

Barring any last-minute reversal, marketers of petroleum products have said they would shut down their filling stations should the planned strike by tanker drivers over their face-off with the Dangote Group start on Monday.

The National President of the Petroleum Products Retail Outlet Owners Association of Nigeria, Billy Gillis-Harry, told The PUNCH in an interview on Sunday that filling stations would have to close down if the strike starts today (Monday). He described the strike as a looming danger.

According to Gillis-Harry, some of PETROAN’s staff are NUPENG members, and they would join the strike. “PETROAN will have no choice because some of our staff are members of NUPENG. And once those people go on strike, our stations will be vulnerable, so we will not open the stations.

That is our concern. The reality is that if our pump attendants, who are members of NUPENG, don’t come to work for any reason, what are we going to do in these stations?” he said.

He announced PETROAN’s three-day suspension of lifting and dispensing of petroleum products commencing from the early hours of Tuesday, September 9, 2025, saying this was PETROAN’s advocacy for healthy competition “as against any form of monopoly in the Nigerian petroleum downstream sector.

He emphasised that the action of NUPENG would be both lawful and peaceful, underscoring the association’s commitment to promoting workers’ rights and benefits through constructive engagement.

He called on President Bola Tinubu, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Oil), Heineken Lokpobiri, the Group Chief Executive Officer of the NNPC, Bayo Ojulari, the Chief Executive of the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority, and security agencies to intervene urgently in the proposed industrial actions to avert potential hardship and pain for citizens.

While making it clear that pump attendants at PETROAN filling stations are registered members of NUPENG, he said NUPENG’s strike would mean these attendants would be absent from duty.  As a result, he instructed filling station owners not to discipline or sack any pump attendant who would be absent from duty until the end of the strike.

Gillis-Harry stated that “the aggressive business strategies of the Dangote refinery would have far-reaching consequences, including pushing private depot owners, modular refinery operators, marketers, retail owners, truck owners, and truck drivers out of business.” This, he warned, would trigger millions of unemployed persons nationwide, with devastating effects on the economy and the livelihoods of Nigerians.

NUPENG had said in a statement on Sunday that there was no going back on the planned industrial action. The union’s president insisted that the Petroleum Tanker Drivers branch of its union would refrain from lifting petroleum products from depots nationwide, starting from Monday.

NUPENG also disowned a statement attributed to the President of the Direct Trucking Company Drivers Association, Enoch Kanawa, which claimed that NUPENG could not speak for members of the Petroleum Tanker Drivers.

In a statement on Saturday, Kanawa had urged Nigerians to disregard the planned industrial action. But the leadership of NUPENG declared that the Kanawa-led DTCDA was a creation of the management of the Dangote refinery, which has allegedly vowed not to allow its recruited truck drivers to “join NUPENG, the only statutorily recognised union authorised to unionise petroleum tanker drivers.”

The statement declared that Kanawa is a lawyer and not a tanker driver, maintaining that there is no division in the ranks of NUPENG or its PTD Branch. It further alleged that the Direct Trucking Company Limited is the recruiting company that was formed by Alhaji Sayyu Dantata and Alhaji Aliko Dangote for the 4,000 CNG trucks they are importing.

“The attention of the leadership of the NUPENG has been drawn to a news report of some unidentified persons and a group of people calling themselves the Direct Trucking Company Drivers Association, asking Nigerians to disregard our alert on the withdrawal of services by the Petroleum Tanker Drivers Branch of NUPENG.

“We ask our members, members of the public, and independent-minded objective segments of the media to disregard DTCDA and its statements. The signatory to the statement of DTCDA, one Enoch Kanawa, is a lawyer, not a tanker driver. Enoch Kanawa signed the statement as the President of DTCDA.

“The media should ask Kanawa when DTCDA was formed and when his election as president took place. As a matter of fact, Kanawa was formerly the Executive Secretary of the National Association of Road Transport Owners from 2001 to 2012,” NUPENG said.