The Trade Union Congress (TUC) has stated that it is prepared to close all oil field locations in the country if ongoing talks with the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) and the Nigerian Agip Oil Company (NAOC) fail to produce favorable outcomes.
Comrade Festus Usifo, President of the TUC, made the threat on Channels Television on Wednesday.
On September 4, Oando PLC signed a deal with ENI, an Italian global energy corporation, to acquire 100% of the shares of Nigerian AGIP Oil corporation Limited.
Concerns have been expressed about the status of Nigerian employees at Agip Company following the ownership shift.
In response to the points expressed, Usifo stated that the Union’s position is for Agip Company to follow due process.
According to him, the TUC is opposed to rolling its members over to Oando PLC without proper development plans for people who have worked for Agip Company for many years.
Usifo said, “What we are asking is that we need to be sure, our members have worked with NAOC over the years, some have worked for over thirty years, some at the point of retirement, and you are saying you want to hand them over to a new company.
“The question is; the liabilities that have been incurred by Agip, the pension, gratuity you are supposed to pay these people? Does Oando have the financial wherewithal to be able to meet these financial obligations to our members? That is the first thing.
“As a patriotic association, we are also asking Oando, you are buying this, what is your development plan? Because the future of our members depends on that company, if the company folds then our members will go home.
“If we are not satisfied with the plans, we will say, pay us our obligations; we do not want to be transited into Oando, pay us our money.
“I have worked for you for 35 years; I have worked for you for thirty years; pay me my perseverance, and let’s discuss a special separation package so that I go.
“If I now want to join Oando it would be based on my discretion, anything I see I take, but the years I have put in Agip and NAOC settle me”.
The TUC President maintains that Oando PLC cannot manage and sustain production in the same way as International Oil Companies, IOCs, do.
“When the IOCs were managing most of these assets, they had the finances to inject into it, and we could have sustained production. That is the real challenge we would be having, and those are the discussions we are also fronting with Agip group.
“Part of operations like stimulation operations, they do not do well enhancement so we would have issues. Those wells will start declining”.
He stated that Agip must sit down and talk with the operators working in the oil fields to guarantee their needs are addressed.
“We have people who are working in the field locations, the operators working there; you cannot bring people who are dissatisfied to be running your assets it does not work like that.
“Who is going to run it? Is it the management of Oando that will just come there and start pressing the buttons? No, you need these employees. So, you must sit down and have a conversation with them.
“If they insist on not complying, they know the consequence, we will withdraw our members from the respective field locations. What we are doing now is conversation, consultation, and discussion with the Agip management”.
Meanwhile, members of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) in Agip have organized a series of prayer sessions across Delta, Rivers, Imo, and Bayelsa States in various NAOC offices and field sites.
The workers are using the prayer meetings to request God’s intervention, as well as backing from the Federal Government and appropriate government agencies, in order to persuade NAOC to follow proper process in the sale of NAOC shares to Oando.
They prayed that Nigerian labor laws would be properly enforced to protect the workforce’s rights throughout the difficult transition, as well as the protection of all their members for whom the suspected sale of Eni’s assets to Oando has unleashed a storm of uncertainty, anxiety, and anger upon its consistent workforce.
