Nigeria strikes loom as govt probes stolen oil

Industry bodies and trade unions have called on the federal government to reconsider the sale of Nigeria’s assets as a means to combat the current financial difficulties, with the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria calling for strikes on Monday.

The association, referred to as Pengassan, in a statement said politicians that recently signalled a readiness to sell oil and gas assets were “short sighted,” vowing to “shut down this country” should the government go ahead with its plans. “We will not watch our national assets sold, especially those in the oil and gas industry such as NLNG [Nigeria LNG] that has become a huge revenue earner for Nigeria; refineries and shares in the upstream oil and gas JV operations,” Pengassan PR officer Comrade Emmanuel Ojugbana said.

The Lagos State Chamber of Commerce and Industry has also called on the government to tap the brakes. “There is need for proper thinking, evaluation of the various industries and find[ing] out the one that needs to be sold. We should not rush to sell, the chamber’s vice-president and chairman of the Trade and Promotion Board, Sola Oyetayo, said over the weekend.

The government, for its part, is planning to set up a commission this week to investigate stolen revenue from undeclared oil and LNG exports. Last week, House of Representatives member Johnson Agbonayinma said the missing volume of exports totalled 58 million barrels of oil and 727,000 tonnes of LNG, worth more USD 17 billion.

Over the weekend, the government’s problems were compounded by the resumption of violence by the Niger Delta Avengers. On Saturday, the group claimed responsibility for a Friday attack on a pipeline in Rivers State, saying it was a “wake-up call.” A spokesperson for the group said that while the avengers were still in “favour of the dialogue” there had been “no progress and no breakthrough.”