Another Oil Crisis Looms As NUPENG Begins Strike On October 8

Petroleum tanker drivers’ arm of the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Pure Gasoline Workers (NUPENG) has threatened to embark on an industrial movement from October 8, 2021 should the Federal Authorities fail to deal with all the contentious factors confronting the union.

It has moreover directed all the tanker drivers to start a work-to-rule movement from Monday.

The union in a communiqué signed by the chairman of the Petroleum Tanker Drivers division, Salmon Akanni Oladiti, after its govt meeting in Enugu yesterday, listed three actions which bordered on the safety of its members and the Federal Authorities reneging on its earlier promise.

In response to Oladiti, the union at its meeting on March 27, 2021, had drawn authorities’s consideration to the rising worth of fireplace incidences involving petroleum vans with accompanying destruction of lives and properties of its members and most people.

Recall that the union had threatened to embark on a nationwide strike from May 1, nonetheless later suspended it.

Oladiti talked about: “Council in session seen with grave points and disappointment the deplorable and shameful conditions of the Nigerian highways regardless of plenty of calls and threats we have issued to the numerous layers of governments.

“These highways have turned to lack of life traps and dens of truck highjackers for the Petroleum Tanker Drivers. Our members are shedding their lives and sources of livelihood on hourly basis.”

He moreover well-known the refusal of the Federal Authorities to implement the compulsory arrange of safety valve in all petroleum vans to protect the inflammable contents of vans from spilling over in a situation of road mishaps.

“The Council in session sees the failure of the Federal Authorities on this regard as the height of insensitivity to the lives of innocent Nigerians and the union cannot proceed to fold its palms whereas our members are getting burnt in all places and regularly,” he acknowledged.

The PTD chairman equally talked about the union considered with pains and complete disgust the continued unscrupulous abuse of the tonnage functionality of petroleum vans by entrepreneurs and transporters all through the nation which is negatively affecting and impacting on the safety and administration of drivers on the wheels along with the durability and sustainability of the highways. Noting that NUPENG could not fathom any logical motive for the failure of presidency to ensure compliance with main tonnage requirements on the highways, he talked about the abuse contributes in no small measure to the rising carnage on the highways with accompanying lack of lives and properties and the persevering with damages of the highways.

He, nonetheless, talked about the union after exhaustive deliberations on all the extraordinarily mandatory problems with security, unanimously resolved to resume the suspended movement “from eighth of October 2021 if the Federal Authorities fails to deal with these three key safety measures in view of the reality that our members are sometimes the first casualties in all these areas of presidency failures with regard to safety of lives and properties of Nigerians.”

He added: “The Division Govt Council in session simply is not unmindful of the pains and discomfort our selections and intending actions may have on most individuals nonetheless these are arduous and difficult selections we should always take for the sake of our members and even most individuals.”