No going back on Monday strike, NUPENG insists

Ahead of the Monday commencement of its planned strike, the national secretariat of the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) has said there was no going back on the industrial action to protest the stance of management of Dangote Refinery not to allow drivers of its imported Compressed Natural Gas Trucks to join any trade union.

Comrade Williams Akporeha and Afolabi, President and General Secretary, respectively of NUPENG in a statement jointly signed and issued to newsmen in Abuja on Sunday, maintained that the Petroleum Tanker Drivers Branch of its Union would refrain from lifting of petroleum products from depots nationwide.

The NUPENG also disowned a statement attributed to Barrister Enoch Kanawa, President of Direct Trucking Company Drivers Association (DTCDA), which claimed that NUPENG could not speak for members of Petroleum Tanker Drivers. Kanawa has urged Nigerians to disregard the planned industrial action.

Clarifying the birth and forces behind the DTCDA, the leadership of NUPENG declared that the Barrister Kanawa-led DTCDA was a creation of the management of Dangote Refinery, which has vowed not to allow its recruited truck drivers to join NUPENG which is the only statutorily recognised union authorised to unionise Petroleum Tanker Drivers.”

The statement which declared that Barrister Enoch Kanawa, is a lawyer, not a tanker driver, maintained 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 Sayyu Aliu Dantata and Aliko Dangote for the 10,000 CNG Trucks they are importing.

NUPENG vowed that it would not surrender to what it called slavish conditions being promoted by Dangote Refinery in the oil industry.

The statement read in part:”The attention of the leadership of the N