Labour Unions Want Nigerian President to Quit as Petroleum Minister

Fri, Apr 22, 2016
By publisher
3 MIN READ

BREAKING NEWS, Oil & Gas

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Labour Unions in the country are calling on President Muhammadu Buhari to relinquish his position as minister of petroleum resources

By Anayo Ezugwu  |  May 2, 2016 @ 01:00 GMT  |

FOLLOWING the protracted fuel scarcity in the country, the Trade Union Congress, TUC, and the Nigerian Labour Congress, TUC, are urging President Muhammadu Buhari to relinquish his position as the minister of petroleum resources. The unions are of the view that the office of the minister of petroleum resources is too critical to the economy of the country to be combined with the office of the president and commander-in-chief.

The TUC is advocating for the appointment of a separate minister of petroleum resources, who would supervise the ministry and report to the president. The perfect candidate for the job, according to TUC, should have the requisite knowledge and experience in the oil and gas industry. The congress also noted that although the position of the minister of state for petroleum resources should remain as a junior minister in the ministry, a different group managing director, GMD, of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, should also be appointed to directly supervise the affairs of the corporation.

Bobboi Bala Kaigama, president, TUC, who made the call at the Save Nigeria Oil and Gas Industry Round Table in Abuja, on Tuesday, April 19, also demanded for the elimination of the cabal behind the corruption in the oil and gas industry. He said: “There is urgent need for the appointment of a substantive minister of petroleum and mineral resources; the ideal candidate for this should be someone who has the necessary knowledge, experience and competence, and who would directly oversee the affairs of the ministry and report regularly to the President.

Kaigama said all the appointees must be persons of bold, incorruptible and sound principles, adding that the cabals in the sector emerged due to corruption. “It is high time we halt the ugly trend whereby members of the cabal are paid billions of naira for ‘fuel imports’ that never reach our shores,” he said.

Also, Ayuba Wabba, president, Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, said Nigeria is the worst case scenario in the management of oil and gas wealth in the world. Wabba said the problem in the oil and gas industry is not lack of law but adherence to the laws.

He advised Nigerians to oppose anyone that violates the law, adding that he refused to pay N200 per litre for the petrol he bought in a station in Kaduna State two weeks ago because the pump price is N86 per litre.

Ambassador Paddy Njoku, chairman of the occasion, in his address, said for government to achieve the aims of the Nigerian Content Monitoring Board Act, it is vital to continually collaborate with industry stakeholders to ensure effective implementation and enforcement of the Act. He sought the passage of Petroleum Industry Bill, PIB, into law in order to strengthen the progress that the board has made.

In his presentation, Louis Brown Ogbeifun, said “It is better to have a not too perfect PIB that could be reviewed in the next few years than allow the status quo to remain as it has been these last 16 years. Stakeholders should close ranks as the death of the oil and gas industry shall have ripple effects on the state of the Nigerian economy as we still run a monolithic economic system,” he said.

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