After over nine hours of intense negotiations and breakout sessions, the high-level conciliation meeting between the Federal Government, the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN), and the Dangote Group ended in a deadlock early hours Tuesday.
The inability of all parties to come to a compromise has left the fate of over 800 sacked workers of Dangote Refinery hanging in the balance and the ongoing nationwide industrial action unresolved.
The conciliatory meeting, convened by the Federal Government had in attendance, the Chief Conciliator, the Minister of Labour and Employment, Muhammad Dingyadi; the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Mr. Wale Edun; Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Dr. Nkeiruka Onyejeocha, PENGASSAN delegates led by its President, Comrade Festus Osifo; top representatives of the Dangote Group,.
Also in attendance were Senior Special Assistant to the President on Engineering Matters, the Permanent Secretary Ministry of Petroleum Resources, as well as senior representatives of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC), Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA), and the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC).
Speaking to journalists after the meeting, Comrade Osifo expressed deep disappointment over the failure to reach an agreement, stressing that the union’s position remained firm on the immediate reinstatement of the 800 workers dismissed by the Dangote Petroleum Refinery.
Osifo lamented that the mass sack has placed the affected workers and their families in a dire situation.
He said: “We have been here for nine hours trying to find a solution. We’ve had numerous deliberations, even breaking into smaller teams to explore all possible resolutions, but unfortunately, there is no solution tonight.
“All we want is justice for the over 800 people who were sacked. These people are fathers and mothers, and their careers are now at stake. When you terminate people the way they have been terminated, it becomes extremely difficult for them to find jobs anywhere,” he explained.
Osifo who added that some of those dismissed were trainees who had been accused of sabotage, a stigma he said could permanently ruin their careers in the oil and gas industry, reiterating the union’s stance that the strike continues until the sacked workers were reinstated.
“If they go home like this, there is no other company in Nigeria that will employ them because they have been labeled saboteurs. These are careers that would be destroyed if a proper remedy is not put in place.
“Our position has been very clear: if you reinstate these people tonight, we will call off our action tonight. But, unfortunately, that reinstatement did not happen, and we were not able to reach a conclusion. So they have asked us to come back again by 2 p.m. today. We pray that God touches the heart of the capitalists, the hearts of the oppressors, to call our people back to work. Until then, the strike continues.
Confirming the union’s claims, Osifo stressed that Dangote Group had admitted to dismissing the workers, pointing to official termination letters already circulating in the media.
“Dangote Group agreed that they dismissed 800 people, and the reason was stated in the letters. It cannot be falsehood because the letters are already in the media. What they stated is already public, and it was signed in a communication they released last Thursday.”
The Minister of Labour and Employment, Alhaji Muhammad Dingyadi, who presided over the conciliation session, acknowledged that the meeting had made progress however, the reinstatement of the sacked workers was the primary stumbling block.
“We have agreed to reconvene today in the afternoon to continue the meeting,. The reinstatement of the sacked workers is the only issue we are on. Apart from that, nothing else is lingering. We have made a lot of progress, the two main issues are unionization and the reinstatement of the workers.”
Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Mr. Wale Edun who expressed concerns over the economic implications of the strike and the deadlock, lamented that resolving the dispute was crucial to sustaining Nigeria’s fragile economic momentum.
“What is utmost in the minds of everybody: the public, the government, investors, and economic actors generally, is that we need to limit the danger of this action to the economy.
“We need to wrap it up, resolve it, and get workers back to work. We need gas flowing, we need crude flowing as input into production, which is critical to where the economy is right now. We don’t want that momentum to be broken, and that is why we were here for nine hours trying to resolve this issue.
Edun was however optimistic that “later today we will be able to break the deadlock, resolve it, and put this behind us so the Nigerian economy can move forward.”
