Imminent Fuel Strike Looms in Nigeria

Oil tanker drivers in Nigeria are due to go on strike this Monday. 

Members of the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers, one of the country’s two main oil industry unions, say they are protesting against low pay and badly maintained roads that wear out their trucks. 

A spokesman for the union, Cogent Ojobo, warned of shortages of petrol, diesel and kerosene across the country as deliveries come to a halt. 

He said no date had been set for the end of the strike. 

There had been very strong indications of fuel crisis after the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) said its Petroleum Tanker Drivers (PTD) had been mobilised to ensure no movement of petroleum tankers as their nationwide strike begins this Monday, April 3, 2017.

This is despite assurance from the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) that it has intervened to avert the strike action by the PTD section of the NUPENG.

Speaking on the development, NUPENG’s national President, Igwe Achese, who issued a statement in Lagos at the end of its Central Working Committee meeting held at the union’s secretariat in Yaba, said the strike would draw the attention of the Federal Government and other stakeholders to some unresolved issues bordering on the welfare of workers, such as bad roads, poor remuneration, insecurity and the alleged excesses of some security agencies.

The South-West Chairman of NUPENG Lagos Council, Alhaji Tokunbo Korodo, yesterday said in Lagos that all the tanker drivers have abandoned their trucks in respect of the indefinite strike, which will begin today unless the Federal Government intervenes.

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