The industrial action embarked upon by employees of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, nationwide has been called off with immediate effect.
On Wednesday morning, the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas, NUPENG, and the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria, PENGASAN, shut down NNPC locations in the country to protest its unbundling by Federal Government on Tuesday.
The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Ibe Kachikwu, had on Tuesday announced the unbundling of NNPC into seven independent companies.
It was gathered that the Minister and the unions met on Wednesday over the issue and the unions reportedly agreed to work with the NNPC as long as its workers were not affected in the exercise.
The Minister’s Technical Assistant on New Media, Ogechi Nnodim, confirmed on Thursday that the “unions have shelved their strike.”
According to her, the NUPENG and PENGASAN “took the decision after a long meeting with the Minister.”
“The meeting ended just after 4:30am and had in attendance unions that had kicked against the unbundling.
“We believe that with this development, the queues will end,” Nnodim added.
Also, the two unions issued a communiqué on the development.
“The GECs of NUPENG and PENGASSAN had a marathon meeting with the GMD/Minister of Petroleum (State) and NNPC Top Mgt for several hours, ending this morning @ 4:30am on the on-going industrial action.
“After exhaustive deliberations, a resolution was signed by the two parties. In view of that, the INDUSTRIAL ACTION is hereby suspended.
“The GEC salutes your SOLIDARITY, UNDERSTANDING & COOPERATION.
NUPENGASSAN”.
“Details of the communiqué signed at the end of the meeting will be provided in due course.
“On behalf of the BECs of the two in-house unions, I thank you all for the cooperation and support extended to us during the struggle.”
