2 October, 2025On 1 October, the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN), suspended a national strike that was sparked by union busting and hostility towards trade unions at Dangote Refinery.
The strike was suspended after conciliation which reinstated the 800 dismissed workers. The chief conciliator then issued a communique.
“Key among the issue captured in the Communique was the immediate recall and redeployment of all affected workers without loss of pay, affirming that their disengagement was unjust and that no evidence of sabotage was established against them. It also reaffirms Section 40 of the Nigerian Constitution, which guarantees the right of workers to freely associate and join unions and provides clear protection against victimization,” wrote PENGASSAN’s national executive council in a notice suspending the strike.
Talks between PENGASSAN and Dangote Refinery had deadlocked on 30 September, during a meeting at the Ministry of Labour and Employment.
The suspension comes after a week of militancy by the unions. On 27 September, PENGASSAN, a union for white-collar senior oil workers, ordered its members to halt natural gas and crude oil supplies to the Dangote Refinery plant in Lagos as part of strike action against the unfair dismissal of 800 workers.
The refinery’s pipes ran dry after PENGASSAN members withdrew their labour from upstream companies like Chevron and Shell. Since early this year, the refinery has been producing petrol, diesel, and jet fuel and was launched with support from trade unions.
The dispute traces back to Dangote Refinery’s resentment towards organised labour even to the extent of announcing that it intended to form an in-house union. In August, around 800 Nigerian engineers and technicians at the refinery joined PENGASSAN, an IndustriALL affiliate, citing poor conditions and the absence of collective bargaining. Within days, they were dismissed, and their contracts terminated without notice. The union is condemning the dismissals saying the oil company violated Nigeria’s Trade Unions Act, which protects the right to organise.
Nigeria’s House of Representatives’ petroleum committee called for the suspension of the strike. The lawmakers’ intervention is like the September 9 memorandum of understanding(MOU) between Dangote Refineries and the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG), the junior staff blue-collar counterpart to PENGASSAN, which averted a nationwide shutdown. The MOU, brokered by the government, with support from the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), pledged union access but Dangote Refinery reneged after a few days.
As the strike intensified, Nigeria’s House of Representatives petroleum committee urged suspension of the strike on 29 September, while a Lagos court issued an order restraining PENGASSAN from industrial action and mandating the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) to sustain crude supplies. However, undeterred and with support from the Trade Union Congress (TUC) and the NLC, union members barricaded NNPCL towers, the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) and the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) in Abuja, vowing to press on until the workers are reinstated.
Lumumba Okugbawa, PENGASSAN general secretary said: “We deeply appreciate your solidarity, discipline and unwavering commitment to the ideals of our union during this critical period. Please remain vigilant and stay united, as the leadership continues to monitor developments.”
IndustriALL general secretary, Atle Hoie, said:
“In full solidarity with the proud affiliates of IndustriALL, NUPENG and PENGASSAN, we express deep concern and unequivocal condemnation of Dangote Refinery’s persistent actions aimed at undermining trade union rights and eroding the hard-won collective bargaining structures established by the two unions. The strike is a legitimate response to these unacceptable developments.”
In letters to Dangote Refinery, IndustriALL expressed concern over the company’s anti-union behaviour and called for dialogue with trade unions.
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