According to a report by Punch Metro, the ongoing protest by
support staff members of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation at
the Warri Refinery on Friday entered its third day with the workers
putting a coffin at the main entrance of the Warri Refining and
Petrochemical Company.
They also vowed not back out of the protest until their demands
were met. One of their demands is to be converted into full staff
members of the NNPC.
However, Saturday PUNCH gathered on Friday that production and
other economic activities at the Warri Refinery had been fully grounded
by the protesting workers.
More than 500 support staff members, who were joined by youths
across the Niger Delta region, had been protesting since Wednesday over
failure by management of NPPC to honour an agreement reached to convert
them to full staff members.
Friday’s protest, however, witnessed a new dimension with the placement of a coffin at the entrance of the refinery.
Punch Metro, which visited the refinery on Friday, also gathered
that a closed-door meeting summoned by the management of the refinery to
resolve the impasse ended in a deadlock.
The meeting had in attendance some representatives of the Community
Relations Committee from host communities and the protesters.
It was gathered that the protesters had vowed to refuse to shift
ground until the Group Managing Director of NNPC, Maikanti Baru,
personally wades into the matter to resolve the crisis.
“This is the third time we would be staging a protest; the last
one was held in May, when the management assured us that the conversion
would be finalised by mid-June. We are already in July and nothing has
been done. We have not been paid salaries for several months also,” one of the protesters said.
They also claimed that most of the protesting workers had reportedly worked for eight to 28 years as support staff members.
The meeting took place at the NNPC Senior Staff Club, Warri with
the Executive Director of Services, Dr Francis Ololo Sokare, mediating
there.
The WRPC management had appealed for the suspension of the protest
for additional two weeks to enable them to facilitate a meeting with
NNPC officials, the Chief Operating Officer of Refineries in Nigeria and
the CRC, in Abuja.
Sokare’s plea was, however, turned down by the leaders of the host
communities and protesters. who demanded the presence of GMD of NNPC for
them to suspend the protest.
Chairman of CRC from Ijala-Ikeren community, Adolphus Tosanwumi, said, “We
told them that they should bring in the Abuja management of NNPC
tomorrow, if the protest must stop. Our people are being treated like
slaves in their own land.
“We’re fully behind the protesters and nothing will stop the
protests until NNPC GMD comes to Warri to see things for himself and
convert our people to staff members. These are the people ensuring that
Warri Refinery remains functional.”
Efforts to speak with NNPC spokesman, Ndu Ughamadu, on Friday were
unsuccessful as calls to his telephone line as at the time of filing
this report were not connecting.
Ughamadu had earlier appealed to the protesters to suspend the protest as the management of NNPC was aware of their demands.
He said, “We have been announcing the various stages for
recruitment. In that advertisement, it was thrown open to all the
workers and they were asked to apply. How many of them applied? The
casual workers were equally invited but that aside, we have engaged
them. We told them that after this exercise, there is another stage.
“If they don’t fall into the first category, they may fall into
the second category. That is what we are doing. We don’t have casual
workers only in the Warri Refinery, we have casual workers in all of our
subsidiaries, including the headquarters and many of them applied, and
they are undergoing interviews now. There’s no discrimination in the
process. I am not aware if there was an agreement with them.”
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