By Bayo Wahab
Nasarawa State Governor, Abdullahi Sule, has dismissed claims that Dangote Petroleum Refinery sacked 800 Nigerian workers, saying such an action would be inconsistent with the refinery’s operational needs.
Governor Sule made this statement in response to allegations by the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN), which accused the refinery of dismissing 800 Nigerian workers for joining the union.
Speaking on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Monday, Sule said the refinery requires thousands of skilled workers to function and cannot simply lay off staff.
“I don’t think that’s what happened. I don’t think Dangote will just wake up one morning and say 800 people gone, I don’t want you. It’s not like that,” the governor stated.
He explained that the refinery had previously employed thousands during its construction and invested in training its workforce.
“Dangote woke up one day and employed over 4,000 employees to build that refinery when it started. By the time they finished, they had over 10,000 in building that refinery. He didn’t just wake up to do that.
“Therefore, he will need people to run that refinery, whether he wants it or he doesn’t want it. He needs competent people to do that. And all those people that I’m talking about have been sent for training,” he said.
Highlighting the scale of operations, Sule added: “The distillation unit alone of that refinery is equivalent to a 40-storey building. You can’t afford, in any system, to have something like that broken down. So, you need people to carry on with the operation and the operation is 24 hours.”
Recall that PENGASSAN, in a communiqué signed by its General Secretary, Lumumba Okugbawa, described the alleged dismissals as “a gross violation of Nigeria’s labour laws, the Constitution, and international conventions on workers’ rights.”
PENGASSAN also claimed the refinery replaced the laid-off Nigerians with more than 2,000 expatriates, mostly Indians, which it said was “a direct attack on the dignity of local labour.”
While Governor Sule acknowledged he did not have full details of the dispute, he stressed that the refinery’s scale and technical demands made large-scale layoffs unlikely.
“I don’t know exactly the details, but I think I will leave it there,” he said.
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