By Obinna Uballa
The Dangote Refinery has assured Nigerians that there will be no petrol shortage despite an ongoing strike by the Petroleum Tanker Drivers (PTD) arm of the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG).
The industrial action, which began on Monday and has drawn support from other labour unions locally and internationally, was sparked by allegations that the refinery is hiring drivers on the condition that they do not join a union, claims strongly denied by the company.
“There is no fuel shortage; everything is going on,” Dangote Group spokesperson Anthony Chiejina told AFP on Tuesday, adding that discussions are ongoing between the union, the government, and the company to resolve the impasse.
Prior to the commissioning of the $20 billion Dangote refinery last year, Nigeria, despite being Africa’s top oil producer, relied almost entirely on imported petrol due to decades of mismanagement and neglect of state-owned refineries.
The 650,000 barrels-per-day facility has since disrupted the downstream oil sector by reducing petrol prices for consumers and challenging entrenched market players, although concerns about a potential monopoly persist.
Last month, the refinery unveiled plans to deploy thousands of compressed natural gas (CNG)-powered trucks for nationwide distribution, a move delayed by logistics bottlenecks.
This initiative threatens to upend a market long dominated by over 20,000 diesel-powered tankers, analysts say.
Union leaders accuse the refinery of anti-labour practices, with NUPENG President Williams Akporeha alleging that Dangote is unwilling to allow workers to unionise. “What Dangote has shown over time is that he’s not prepared to have workers that will have a say in his employment,” Akporeha told Arise News on Tuesday.
The strike has garnered solidarity from the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), global union federation IndustriALL, and the International Lawyers Assisting Workers (ILAW) network in Washington.
Chiejina dismissed the allegations as “cheap blackmail,” insisting: “It’s not true. Nobody has done that and nobody ever has.”
