Oil workers under the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) has directed all its members in the country to withdraw services within 24 hours.
The decision was taken at an emergency meeting of all its branches on Saturday, 27th of September following the recent sack of 800 workers by the Dangote Refinery
General Secretary, Comrade Lumumba Okugbawa, conveyed this in a communique he signed and made available to newsmen.
The union lamented that Dangote Refinery’s unilateral action to sack over 800 members of the Association for joining PENGASSAN was an insult to all workers in Nigeria and a deliberate violation of Nigeria’s labour laws, the Constitution, and ILO conventions.
The communique reads that Dangote Refinery’s notoriety for enslaving Nigerian workers, and the eventual sack of all Nigerians working in the refinery and hiring of over 2,000 Indians, is a show of disloyalty to a country that has given him the most incentives any company has ever enjoyed in Nigeria, at taxpayers’ expense.
The oil workers said the company has subjected Nigerians to the worst type of working conditions in the oil and gas industry.
It said:“That no man or company, no matter how highly placed, is above the law and cannot be called to order by the national institutions.
“That the over 800 staff whose jobs have been given to Indians, and their families are Nigerians and victims was made to suffer unjustly and there is an urgent need to avoid setting a dangerous precedence.
The National Executive Council (NEC) of
of PENGASSAN resolves that all its members working across field locations are to withdraw services effective 06:00hrs on Sunday, 28th of September, 2025 and commence 24-hour prayers.
This includes all control room operations, panel operations, and outeld personnel.
It said: “All PENGASSAN members across all ofces, companies, institutions, and agencies should withdraw all services effective 00:01 on Monday, 29th of September, 2025”.
The oil workers said no intervention whatsoever will be entertained across field locations except where the safety of personnel and assets is at risk.
“All processes that involve gas and crude supply to Dangote Refinery should be let off effectively immediately.
“All IOC branches must ramp down gas production and supply to Dangote Refinery and petrochemicals.
“The prayer point should include a call to God Almighty to give courage to those in authority to rein in Dangote and his co-travelers on the need to obey the laws of our country, “it added.
Dangote Petroleum Refinery had yesterday warned that the recent directive issued by the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) to cut crude oil and gas supplies to the refinery could plunge Nigerians into fresh rounds of fuel scarcity while inflicting huge revenue losses on the government.
The refinery described the directive as an act of economic sabotage that, if enforced, would disrupt the production and nationwide supply of critical petroleum products, including petrol, diesel, aviation fuel, kerosene, and cooking gas.
The company emphasized that these products are indispensable to daily life and the economy, warning that Nigerians at every level, from households to businesses and industries would bear the brunt of shortages.
It noted that a sudden disruption in supply will translate into insufferable hardship for millions of Nigerians.
“The products that would be disrupted and stopped include but are not limited to aviation fuel, petrol, kerosene, diesel and cooking gas – all products that are used and required by all stripes of Nigerians and persons living in Nigeria, whether high and mighty or lowly and ordinary. In what circumstance would it be justified for PENGASSAN to so disrupt and introduce insufferable hardship into the living conditions of Nigerians? None that we can see,” the company said. “The follow up question is, in whose interest and on whose behalf is PENGASSAN directing and intending to inflict such anarchic and criminal disruption upon the Nigerian society and persons living in Nigeria? Most certainly, not in the interest of the Nigerian State and/or the Nigerian public and citizens”.
Dangote Refinery also warned that the government’s revenue would also be dented, given the refinery’s status as one of the country’s largest taxpayers and contributors to both federal and state coffers.
The company said any pause in operations would stall contributions to the national purse and undermine investor confidence in Nigeria’s oil and gas sector.
The statement noted, “This is also economic sabotage against the Nigerian State at multiple levels. Dangote Refinery is the only refinery of its type in Africa and ordinarily should be the pride of all Nigerians as well as the governments of Nigeria. It should ordinarily have special protection and status and indeed qualifies as a strategic national asset”.
It added that an irreparable injury to the Dangote Refinery such as PENGASSAN has directed constitutes a national embarrassment to the country and a disincentive to external investors who ordinarily would have been encouraged by the success of Dangote Refinery to contemplate investing in Nigeria’s oil and gas sector or generally.
“PENGASSAN may also not be aware that Dangote Refinery is one of the largest contributors to the revenue purse of the Nigerian governments – both Federal and sub-nationals. That contribution is currently threatened by PENGASSAN and would of course be paused if and as soon as and for as long as the PENGASSAN directive is implemented by its branches,” it noted.
