Offices of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) were yesterday shut nationwide as workers of the state-owned oil company embarked on strike.
There was no prior warning about the strike said to have been ordered by the two oil unions, the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers NUPENG) and the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association (PENGASSAN).
NNPC workers who reported for duty at the headquarters in Abuja yesterday got to work to find their offices under lock and key.
The unions said they were protesting against the unbundling of the corporation ordered by President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday.
The reorganisation of NNPC was announced on Tuesday by the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Ibe Kachikwu.
Kachikwu, who is also the Group Managing Director of NNPC, announced that the new business units of the corporation are now Upstream, Downstream, Gas & Power, Refineries, Ventures, Corporate Planning & Services and Finance & Accounts. They will run independently.
With the announcement of this new policy road map, the realigned NNPC comprises of five business-focused and two service driven units.
The chief executives of the new units are Bello Rabiu (Upstream); Sa’idu Mohammed (Gas and Power); (Anibor Kragha) Refining; Henry Ikem-Obih (Downstream); Dr. Babatunde Victor Adeniran (Ventures).
Others are Isiaka Abdulrazaq (Finance & Accounts) and Isa Inuwa (Corporate Planning & Services).
According to NNPC, “The organizational realignment is not about staff layoffs but about placing the right people in the right places to do the right thing.”
Kachikwu has however said there was no truth in the reports that the Federal Government had unbundled NNPC.
Speaking at the State House, Abuja yesterday, he said what the government had done can best be described as a “reorganisation”.
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