Nigeria: Learning to Swim Without Getting Wet

10 December 2018

THE National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers, NUPENG, one of the most militant unions in African labour history, last week marked its fortieth anniversary. Back in 1994 when the military held Nigeria in vile grip, NUPENG sent out a call for the unions to rescue the country. The regime of General Sani Abacha was particularly brutish, nasty and bloody. It was a dictatorship that had no rules, respected none and included the bombing of buses especially those conveying soldiers, as part of governance. Not surprisingly, other unions including the central labour organisation, the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, chickened out.

NUPENG, backed by the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria, PENGASSAN, took on the military in weeks of strikes and protests. Even when the strikes were crushed and its leaders herded into years of solitary confinement, NUPENG held its head high. As part of this anniversary, NUPENG invited me as a discussant at its roundtable on "Local Content in the Nigeria Oil and Gas Industry: Wherein lies the interest of Nigerian Workers?"

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