Nigeria Security Update #1 240507

NLC asks foreigners to obey stay-at-home order

The Nigeria Labour Congress has advised foreigners to obey its stay-at-home directive on May 28 and 29 and stay away from the presidential inauguration.

The NLC President, Mr. Abdulwaheed Omar, gave the advice on Tuesday at a press conference organised to herald the stay-at-home protest.

Omar also announced the congress‘s ”decision to enforce the stay-at-home protest in spite of threats by the government and its agencies.”

He said, ”Foreign nationals are advised to obey the stay-at-home directive for their own safety and because they too have a stake here.

“We need your support and understanding. We want our country to work as good if not better than your own countries.

”If we do not get it right, our youths will never stop migrating to your countries. If you continue to side with criminality, fraud and state violence, we cannot get it right.”

According to Omar, the stay-at-home order is necessary because of the willful destruction of democratic culture and institutions, the imposition of the tyranny of the few, the relentless assault on the people‘s values and cultures and the unwholesome corruption in the polity.

He added, ”These elections have been considered by Nigerians and international observers as the worst in the history of this country.

“The tragedy of the situation is that while other countries, including the supposedly less-endowed, are moving forward, we are dancing in circles, sometimes backwards.”

”The conduct of these elections has taken us several decades back; yet, we are said to be the giant of Africa. No wonder, we are the butt of cruel jokes across the world.”

On the reported support by the European Union and G8 for the President-elect, Alhaji Umar Yar‘Adua, Omar said not all those who profess love and friendship for the country truly care about Nigeria .

He said, ”Not everybody that comes in to say they are friends are truly friends of Nigeria . If they (EU or G8) are coming here, they are only coming to protect their interest or programme of economic domination. Those who support this imposition are not friends of Nigeria.”

Strike: Oil Workers Vow to Cripple Economy

Oil workers under the under the umbrellas of the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas (NUPENG) and Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association (PENGASSAN yesterday vowed to cripple the economy by embarking on indefinite strike to protest the sale last week of the Port Harcourt Refinery, and Stallion House early this year by the Federal Government.

The unions, under the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) yesterday stated that unless the Federal Government meets their demands latest by yesterday (Wednesday 12 midnight), they will join their counterparts in NNPC and other government affiliates in the action which begins today (Thursday).

The DPR workers are protesting the Federal Government refusal to grant autonomy to the
department, sales of Port Harcourt and Kaduna Refineries, sale of Pipeline and Petroleum
Marketing Company (PPMC) facilities as well as non implementation of collective
agreement between the workers and the government.

Other workers, in the employment of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and its affiliates who spoke to THISDAY yesterday, expressed their grievances over the sales, as well as alleged move to slash salaries of staff in the government corporation, saying there is no going back to the strike unless government recinds its decision.

But the Group Managing Director (GMD) of the NNPC, Engr. Funsho Kupolokun who addressed the workers in the corporationís employ yesterday, prayed them to shelve the planned strike but to embrace dialogue as the way to resolving their grievances.

At the meeting with the staff of the corporation in Abuja, Kupolokun asserted that ``Strike at this point in time is not in the interest of the oil industry in particular and the nation in general,íínoting that the action has never been a means to resolving differences, but will only retard national development. The GMD assured the workers that there would not be any cut in salaries since the Shonekan Committee on review of salaries did not recommend such.

``I am a member of the committee and I do know that there was never a recommendation for a salary cut in the oil and gas industry.

``The Shonekan report recognised the fact that we are competing in a different world and what was recommended was within such context,íí he explained, even as he enjoined the workers to allow the management of the corporation to continue its discussion with the government as that will be in their own interest.

On the sale of the Port Harcourt refinery, Kupolokun argued that the sale of Eleme petrochemical plant did not affect the workersí jobs, and explained that the staff who will be affected by the sale of the utility would be re-posted to other subsidiaries.

``The truth of the matter is that, the sale is not a run-away privatisation, we still hold 49 per cent shares in the utility,íí he said, pointing out that workers cannot stop government from implementing its policies, adding that policies of deregulation, commercialisation and privatisation are practised world-wide.

The Bureau of Public Enterpises (BPE) had last week sold 51 per cent federal government equity in the Port Harcourt Refinery to Bluestar Oil Services Limited Consortium , owned by Aliko Dangoteís Equity Energy Resources, Femi Otedolaís Zenon Oil and Transnational Corporation for a total amount of $561millon.
The group chairman PENGASSAN,NNPC Mr. John Elibe had sequel to the sale last week, urged all workers of the NNPC, as well as the Nigerian Gas Company (NGC) to join in the strike action.

He said, our unions were not opposed to privatization, but only resented the manner that the BPE sold PH refinery without the necessary due diligence, adding, ëíit was in the same manner it sold out our monumental investment in the Stallion House without our consent.