News breaking this morning informs that Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) staff have shut down the operations nationwide following Tuesday’s unbundling of the corporation. Members of staff and management of the corporation arrived their various offices on Wednesday morning to discover that they could not gain entrance following the total strike. This has led to scarcity of fuel and long queue and skirmishes have broken out in filling stations nationwide.
It is not expected to affect the crude oil export yet except the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) joins in solidarity. Ibe Kachikwu, minister of state for petroleum resources who doubles as the NNPC group managing director, had announced the creation of seven independent units on Tuesday, namely downstream, gas and power, refineries, ventures, corporate planning and services, and finance and accounts.
A meeting late last night was held between the group executive committee (GEC) of the the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) and the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) to discuss this development and come to a decision as to action to be taken. A statement from the group stated:
“The GEC of NUPENG & PENGASSAN at its meeting of 8th March 2016, which started at 10:00pm has extensively discussed the pronouncement of the GMD on NNPC UNBUNDLING. We observed that the GMD/HMSP totally disregarded due process and failed to engage STAKEHOLDERS. Hence, from midnight today, ALL NNPC LOCATIONS will be SHUT DOWN COMPLETELY until further notice. Further directives will be communicated accordingly.”
Access to the NNPC offices have been restricted and as a result work has been stopped.
Last week, Kachikwu announced that the government was planning to unbundle the corporation into 30 profitable companies and this has distressed members of NUPENG