LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — Nigerian government officials are set to meet with representatives of the country’s oil workers union on Monday, a union leader told The Associated Press, following a strike to protest the firing of oil workers at Africa’s biggest refiner. The walkout threatens to halt nationwide supply.The union called Saturday on all its members to halt services after 800 oil workers were fired by Dangote Refinery, saying in a statement the mass layoff was “an affront to all workers in Nigeria and a deliberate violation of Nigeria’s labour laws, the Constitution, and ILO conventions”.“We are meeting with (government officials) this afternoon,” said Lumumba Okugbawa, the secretary general of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria, or PENGASSAN, one of two main unions representing gas and oil workers in the country.
The strike by the oil workers’ union has halted operations at the country’s key oil and gas institutions. The oil industry is responsible for 80% of the revenue of Africa’s most populous country and the continent’s biggest oil producer.The nation’s oil and natural gas sector has struggled for many years, and most of the state-run refineries operate far below capacity because of poor maintenance, according to analysts.
