BENIN CITY- The current fuel scarcity pervading the length and breadth of Nigeria is soon to take a drastic dimension as all the members of staff of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC)in all its subsidiaries nation-wide have embarked on an indefinite strike action.
The industrial action, which commenced yesterday, is to register their protest against the alleged sales of Oil Mining License (OML)42,40,30 being operated by the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC) subsidiary of the corporation located in Benin City Edo State. Staff of NPDC had commenced their strike since last week.
In solidarity with their NPDC colleagues, staff of Integrated Data Services Limited (IDSL), Benin City under the aegis of Petroleum and Natural Gas. Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) and National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) had to go spiritual by embarking on fervent prayers by both Christians and Muslims to seek God’s intervention for the past two days before they finally downed tools yesterday.
Of the three OML (s), OML 42 is the most economically viable to NNPC through NPDC and the sustenance and welfare of the entire staff of the corporation.
It was gathered that the leaders of the PENGASSAN and NUPENG had to request the management to leave their offices yesterday afternoon before the normal official closing hour of 4:30 pm.
It would be recalled that the Eleme Petroleum Chemicals, another economically juicy company was sold at the end of the second lap of the civilian administration at the national level in 2007.
Deziani Allison Madueke
