NUPENG Seeks End To IPMAN’s Leadership Tussle

The National President,
National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG), Comrade Igwe Achese, has advocated dialogue as the only panacea to restoring sanity in the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) leadership crisis.
Achese who spoke to The Tide last Wednesday from Abuja said NUPENG’s proposed planned strike over the leadership tussle rocking IPMAN had been shelved to explore more meaningful avenues of dialogue and negotiation to end the imbroglio.
The union’s boss said NUPENG was committed to protecting the interest of its members who constitute the majority of the workforce in IPMAN, stressing that the union shelved its strike action billed to begin yesterday to allow more time for the dialogue and implementation of the 2009 agreement between both unions.
Achese said NUPENG would wait for the outcome of the June 30 meeting for a response from the officials of the Ministries of Labour and Productivity and Justice on their intervention to amicably resolve the IPMAN leadership impasse.
He accused the Aminu Abdulkadir-led faction of IPMAN of violating and continually breaching a peaceable move to resolve the leadership crisis.
The union president said the welfare of the union members in IPMAN remains paramount to the leadership of the union.
The labour leader explained that the union was not against the planned privatisation of refineries by the Federal Government, but insisted that the Turn Around Maintenance (TAM) should be carried out properly with  pipelines well secured.