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NLC backs NUPENG in dispute with Dangote refinery
The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has expressed unwavering support for the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) amid their ongoing conflict with Dangote Refinery concerning fuel distribution.
In a statement dated Saturday and signed by NLC president Comrade Joe Ajaero, the Congress asserted that Nigerian workers must not be “sacrificed on the altar of corporate greed,” emphasizing that their solidarity with NUPENG is “not negotiable.”
The dispute arose after NUPENG instructed its Petroleum Tanker Drivers (PTD) branch to halt loading petroleum products from Dangote depots starting Monday, September 8.
READ ALSO: NUPENG threatens fuel loading halt over dispute with Dangote refinery
Central to the disagreement is the refinery’s reported policy preventing drivers employed for its 10,000 compressed natural gas (CNG) trucks from joining any trade union.
The NLC stated it had thoroughly reviewed NUPENG’s complaints and received additional grievances from other unions accusing Dangote of anti-union behavior, monopolistic tactics, and poor industrial relations.
It further alleged that the Dangote Group has been systematically violating workers’ constitutional rights to freedom of association by imposing “company unions” that weaken collective bargaining.
Labeling the situation as a direct assault on Nigerian workers, the Congress accused the refinery of exploitative labor practices, inadequate wages, casual employment, and favoring foreign workers over qualified Nigerians.
The NLC also claimed that instead of reducing costs, the Dangote monopoly exploits scarcity and distribution control to increase prices, worsening poverty and hardship.
“This is not industrialisation; it is economic sabotage. It is not nation-building; it is class robbery,” the statement declared. “What we are witnessing is the classic playbook of primitive capitalism, where workers are treated as slaves without voice or dignity.”
The Congress cited Section 40 of the Nigerian Constitution, the Labour Act, and ILO Conventions 87 and 98, insisting that Dangote’s actions violate both national and international labor laws.
The NLC outlined several demands:
– The Federal Government must immediately summon Alhaji Aliko Dangote and associates to ensure compliance with labor laws and international standards.
– Dangote Group must end all anti-union and anti-worker practices.
– All Dangote Group companies, including the refinery, must be fully unionized.
– Nigerian workers, industrial unions, and state councils have been placed on high alert for potential nationwide action.
– Regulatory bodies, especially the Nigerian Midstream & Downstream Petroleum Authority, must intervene or risk complicity in the privatization of Nigeria’s energy sector and workforce exploitation.
– Nigerians should recognize that “this is not philanthropy, it is plunder; it is not development, it is dispossession and enslavement.”
The NLC stressed that the conflict extends beyond NUPENG, representing an attack on the entire labor movement.
“The attack on NUPENG is an attack on us all,” the statement read. “Our Constitution and international conventions guarantee our right to organise, collectively bargain, and defend our dignity at work. We will resist every attempt by the Dangote Group to roll back these rights.”
The Congress warned that if Dangote does not immediately cease its “anti-union and anti-people policies,” it will escalate its response.
“We warn that if Dangote continues on this reckless anti-union path, the NLC and its affiliates will move beyond words to action.
“We will confront this tyranny head-on until victory is secured for Nigerian workers and the Nigerian people,” the statement added.
“Our solidarity is not negotiable. We will fight because we must. The working class must not be sacrificed on the altar of corporate greed.”
The echoes of the drums rolled out to celebrate the rescue of the 44 teachers and students, kidnapped from some schools in Oyo State, after 56 days in the bush, would surely be disrupted abruptly, with the divergent echoes of a fresh abduction, this time coming from Kogi State.
Reports indicate that the gunmen, struck on Tuesday at the Government Secondary School, Odo-Ekina, in Dekina Local Government Area of the state, abducting four students, the school principal and a National Examinations Council (NECO) ad hoc staff member.
Authorities of the Kogi State Police Command, who immediately unleashed their operatives in hot pursuit of the abductors, said the attack occurred at about 5:25 p.m. while the students were writing their NECO examination.
Saliu Oyiza Afusat, an Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) and spokesman of the command, said a combined team of police personnel and other security agencies has launched a search-and-rescue operation following the incident.
Informing that one of the students was actually rescued immediately, she said efforts were ongoing to secure the release of the remaining victims and apprehend the attackers, adding that Naziru Bello Kankarofi, the state Commissioner of Police, alongside the Brigade Commander and the State Security Adviser to the Governor, Commodore Jerry Omodara (Rtd), were already on the way to the scene for an on-the-spot assessment.
Oil prices are expected to go down now with the announcement of Donald Trump, US President that he will no longer impose a 20 percent “safe passage” fee on ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz.
The POTUS, hinged his reversal of the decision on the intervention from some Gulf countries, who pleaded with him not to toe the line due to the massive economic impact the decision would make on the region.
Indeed, oil prices had shot up immediately Trump announced the new levy on Monday while declaring the US ‘the guardians of the Hormuz strait,’ a measure which he said was to pay for the cost of guarding the volatile area in order keep supply of oil flowing.
Reports said that Gulf allies of the US worked frantically to get Trump on the phone in time to talk him out of the idea altogether, while a flurry of appeals came from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Qatar.
In response, the POTUS, posting on his Truth Social platform, wrote: “Based on highly productive conversations with Middle East leadership, I have decided to replace the 20% United States Reimbursement Fee with Trade and Investment Deals that the various Gulf States will be making into the United States.”
Trump, who said the investments would be “MASSIVE but, at the same time, extraordinarily good for them, and their future,” added that the deals would see factories, plants, and equipment pour into the US at “Historic levels.”
The Gulf nations have committed to invest trillions of dollars in the US, though it remains unclear how much of that they will actually spend over the next several years.
Meanwhile, the US continues to bomb Iran in what appears to be a resumption of active conflict between both countries, despite an ongoing roadmap to end the conflict.
Reports say operatives of the Osun State Police Command, and those of the Department of State Services (DSS) had tracking the trail of Adeniyi Adeyemi, controversial Director General of the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC), for weeks, before he was eventually pulled out of his hole on Tuesday.
However, the duo, were said to have pulled back after failing to track him through his mobile phones, which he had reportedly switched off for about two days, making it difficult to locate him, leaving the stage for the members of the Police Intelligence Response Team (PI-RT) led by Moses Lohor, a Chief Superintendent of Police (CSP).
Lohor, said to have previously served as the Commander of the Anti-Kidnapping Squad of Osun State, and reported to have been involved in high-profile security operations and controversies, after taken over fielded his men to pick up signals from their well-oiled signal networks.
Regarded by many Osun residents as one of the key security officers who contributed significantly to the peace and stability enjoyed in Ilesa and other parts of the state during his tenure, he was said to have relied on his contacts before his transfer out of the state, said to have raised concerns from the public about the security situation he would be leaving behind.
His exit from the state was said to be hinged on an incident in 2024, in which he allegedly shot one Iyanda Alowonle, then Chairman of Osun State Motor Transport System, in the stomach at the police station in the state prompting an order for his arrest by then Inspector General of Police (IGP).
His effort was said to have paid off when he successfully tracked down the controversial PFIPC, boss, who was seen on Tuesday evening, in a shot video on social media undergoing interrogation, and eventually handed him over to Ibrahim Gotan, Commissioner of Police in the state.
The PUNCH quoted one of the sources as saying: “The arrest (of Adeyemi) took place on Tuesday morning by the IRT squad, who immediately moved him to Abuja. After he was arrested, he was taken to Ibadan and from there to Abuja.”
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