NUPENG Calls Off Strike

Labour unions in Nigeria’s oil sector, the National Union of
Petroleum and Natural Gas (NUPENG) and the Petroleum
and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria
(PENGASSAN), have called off their strike with immediate
effect.
According to sources the strike was called off at 4:00 am
today after a marathon meeting between the Minister of
State for Petroleum, Ibe Kachikwu and leaders of the two
unions.
The workers had staged a work walk-out on Wednesday
following the announcement of the unbundling of the NNPC
into seven autonomous units.
The workers kicked that the Minister had not carried them
along and that the unbundling triggered issues about
pensions, possible job losses and due process.
Spokesmen said the unbundling also breached the law that
set up the NNPC, 38 years ago.
Kachikwu assured them that there was no unbundling of
NNPC, stressing that, what was happening was a
restructuring.

NNPC: Workers Shutdown Operations Nationwide

Oil workers have shut down the operations of the Nigerian
National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) nationwide
following Tuesday’s unbundling of the corporation.
Members of staff and management of the corporation arrived
their various offices on Wednesday morning to discover that
they could not gain entrance following the total strike.
The immediate impact of the strike will be nationwide fuel
scarcity as products will not be lifted by NUPENG. It is not
expected to affect the crude oil export yet except the
Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) joins in
solidarity. Ibe Kachikwu, Minister of state for petroleum
resources who doubles as the NNPC Group Managing
Director, had announced the creation of seven independent
units on Tuesday, namely downstream, gas and power,
refineries, ventures, corporate planning and services, and
finance and accounts.
The Group Executive Committee (GEC) of the Nigeria Union
of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) and the
National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers
(NUPENG) convened an emergency meeting at 10pm on
Tuesday to discuss the development. At the end of the
meeting, GEC sent this message to all members:
“The GEC of NUPENG & PENGASSAN at its meeting of 8th
March 2016, which started at 10:00pm, has extensively
discussed the pronouncement of the GMD on NNPC
UNBUNDLING. We observed that the GMD/HMSP totally
disregarded due process and failed to engage
STAKEHOLDERS.
Hence, from midnight today (Tuesday), ALL NNPC
LOCATIONS will be SHUT DOWN COMPLETELY until further
notice. Further directives will be communicated
accordingly.”

World Bank To Invest $100m To Improve Quality Basic Education In Five States In Nigeria

At the lunch of the project in Katsina, the Minister of
Education, Alhaji Adamu Adamu explained that the project
was aimed at improving access and quality of basic
education with particular attention to girls and out of school
children. He said the Five States are to benefit from a one hundred million dollar
Global Partnership for Education project supported by the
World Bank.
The States are Kano, Katsina, Kaduna, Jigawa, and Sokoto.The Minister, who was represented by the Coordinator of the
Nigeria Partnership for Education Project at the
Federal Ministry of Education, Mr. Joseph Owoicho,
explained that the benefitting States will design the policies
based on which the project will be executed in their states.
Representative of the World Bank, Dr. Adekola Tunde, urged
the benefitting states to utilise the funds to improve
infrastructure in primary and pre-primary schools and
ensure equitable access to quality education, particularly at
the grassroots.
In his speech, Governor Aminu Bello Masari noted that the
funds will be utilised for the improvement of teacher's
capacity and the procurement of instructional and working
materials for primary schools.

Lagos Collapsed Building Death Toll Rises to 34

The death toll at the Lekki collapsed building has risen
to 34, as rescue workers on Wednesday

retrieved 16
more bodies from the rubbles. This is just as many
persons, bodies were suspected to still be trapped
underneath the rubble of the five-storey building that
caved in at the wee hours of Tuesday.

Meanwhile, officials of the Lagos State Emergency
Management Agency (LASEMA) have released the
corpse of one Aba Ali to his relatives for burial after
proper documentation.
Ali’s body was handed over to one Gaji Mohammed
who said the family was proceeding to Marecas
cemetery to bury him in line with Islamic rites.

One of the rescue team member