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Adewale Sanyaolu
The relative stability being enjoyed by Nigerians in the supply and distribution of petroleum products may soon be truncated as the Petroleum Tanker Drivers (PTD) branch of the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) has vowed to resist the tenure elongation of its serving National Executive Council (NEC).
A statement by the Branch National Chairman and Secretary of PTD, Mr. Salimon Oladiti, and Sunday Ochibejivwe, said the elongation was a breach of the union’s constitution and an open invitation to intra union and industrial relations crisis in the oil and gas industry.
PTD in a letter addressed to the National President of NUPENG, Mr. Igwe Achese, Minister of Labour and Productivity, Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, NNPC GMD and other members of the NEC, urged them to set in motion the process of convening a National Delegates Conference to elect new NUPENG national executives on or before March 26.
Giving a brief background to the history of the current NUPENG NEC Executives, Oladiti said the Achese-led NUPENG team was elected and sworn-in in December 2009 for the first term of four years and re-elected for a second term in office in October 2013 at the Presidential Hotel, Port Harcourt, Rivers State.
He explained further that the two terms of the current NUPENG executives constitutionally ended in October 2017, noting that at a Central Working Committee (CWC) and National Executive Council (NEC) meetings of the union in December 2017, the matter generated heated debate and the General Secretary of NUPENG requested for a grace period of 90 days within which it will convene a National Delegates Conference.
The request for 90 days, according to him, was alien to the constitution but was granted in the interest of peace. Regrettably, he disclosed that the 90 days request had since lapsed on March 3, with no date or venue yet communicated to members or branches on when the National Delegates Conference will hold.
‘‘It is very obvious that there is a ploy to create disaffection and avoidable industrial relations crisis in the oil and gas industry. We are therefore notifying you that if by March 28, 2018, the National Delegates Conference of the union is not convened, with new officers elected and duly sworn-in, the leadership of the PTD branch of the union will not hesitate to take every necessary step to restore the constitutionality and integrity of our great union.
