The Coming Demise of NUPENG

By Abiodun Alade

A storm is gathering over certainly one of Nigeria’s strongest labour unions, and the thunderclap could quickly convey its roof down.

As soon as upon a time, the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Pure Fuel Employees (NUPENG) wore the gown of a fearless defender of staff’ rights. At present, it’s accused of getting shed that gown, donned a silk agbada, and recast itself as a cartel, a cabal fattened on levies, intimidation, and extortion.

The elders of the Petroleum Tanker Drivers (PTD), the very spine of the union, are now not whispering; they’re shouting from the rooftops, demanding the resignation of NUPENG’s president, Comrade Williams Akporeha, and his normal secretary, Comrade Afolabi Olawale. Their cost sheet reads just like the script of a Nollywood political thriller: corruption, abuse of workplace, intimidation, and dragging a once-respected physique into nationwide ridicule.

However scratch beneath the drama and also you’ll discover a darker reality: NUPENG now not behaves like a union. It behaves like a cartel, holding Nigeria’s gas provide by the throat whereas sipping champagne in top quality jets.

The listing of sins is lengthy: harassment of drivers, defiance of courtroom orders, unlawful levies at depots, and the conscription of members into street-level enforcers. Its infamous N39,000 “gate payment” per tanker truck imposed with out regulation, regulation, or disgrace generates billions. A hidden tax. A shadow treasury. None of it declared, none of it accountable.

Let’s do the maths. One gas truck carries 33,000 litres. At N39,000 per truck, that’s about N1.18 slapped on each litre. Nigeria consumes roughly 50 million litres each day. Which means NUPENG rakes in N59 million a day, N1.8 billion a month, practically N22 billion a yr, cash that doesn’t enter the nation’s coffers.

At fuel terminals, it’s even worse. Members of the Nigeria Liquefied and Compressed Gases Affiliation (NLCGA) complain of paying N72,000 per truck earlier than loading. That’s one other N3 billion in a yr’s sweep, diverted straight into the union’s opaque vaults.

This isn’t commerce unionism. It’s armed theft with an bill.

And but, the best tragedy is reserved for the tanker drivers themselves—the boys whose sweat and spilled blood lubricate the nation’s gas economic system.

They drive rickety vehicles on death-trap highways. They battle fatigue, accidents, fires, and the each day gamble of survival. For this, they get no pension, no insurance coverage, no fallback plan. Ought to calamity strike, they’re discarded like worn tyres. NUPENG has no plan for them.

Worse nonetheless, as an alternative of safety, they’re harassed by touts waving NUPENG’s banner, squeezed for levies on each freeway nook. What number of of NUPENG’s executives have ever pushed a tanker throughout Ore or Lokoja? None. But from their air-conditioned places of work, they ship males into the storm whereas they themselves float in SUVs, non-public jets, and worldwide conferences, typically with mistresses in tow, not the drivers they declare to characterize.

As if that weren’t sufficient, NUPENG additionally deducts 1% of members’ salaries as dues. Hundreds of thousands vanish month-to-month. Who audits these accounts? Nobody. Maybe it’s time the Registrar of Commerce Unions or higher but, the EFCC requested to see the books. But when historical past is any information, NUPENG’s response can be as predictable as a badly written movie: name a strike, threaten to break down the economic system, and conceal its worry of accountability beneath the flag of “staff’ rights.”

The hazard will not be summary. With one strike or blockade, NUPENG can paralyse the nation. This looming risk casts a darkish shadow over the Dangote Petroleum Refinery, a $20 billion lifeline meant to finish gas importation and stabilise the vitality market. If NUPENG’s extortion equipment hijacks Dangote’s deliberate 10,000-strong truck fleet, the dream may curdle right into a nightmare. A single month of disruption may bleed Nigeria of $1.3 billion.

But, change is brewing. A brand new era of tanker drivers is rising, now not content material to be pawns within the video games of union barons. Led by males like Fortunate Osesua, Dayyabu Garga, and Dr Humble Obinna Energy, they’re calling for reform, not of faces alone, however of the very soul of the union.

The Worldwide Labour Group (ILO) is evident: union membership have to be voluntary, not coerced. NUPENG’s chokehold on staff and companies mocks Conference 87 on Freedom of Affiliation. The place the ILO envisions freedom, NUPENG enforces worry. The place it preaches transparency, NUPENG practises racketeering.

Can a cartel be reformed? Can intimidation be digitised? Can extortion be given a recent coat of paint and rebranded as “union service cost”? Each litre of gas offered in Nigeria in the present day bears an invisible tax, not levied by authorities however by a handful of union mandarins fattened on impunity.

That’s not unionism. That’s criminality wearing overalls.

The top of NUPENG in its present kind will not be a matter of if, however when. The masquerade has danced too lengthy out there sq.. Nigerians deserve a union that defends labour, not one which weaponises it. The Registrar of Commerce Unions, the Ministry of Labour, and anti-corruption our bodies should summon the braveness to interrupt this cartel earlier than it sabotages the nation additional.

NUPENG’s fall is not going to be a tragedy. It will likely be a cleaning.

Abiodun, a communications specialist, writes from Lagos