NLC BACKS NUPENG'S CALL FOR STRIKE ACTION ON MONDAY

 PRESS RELEASE 

6TH OF SEPTEMBER, 2025 

WE STAND IN SOLIDARITY WITH NUPENG AGAINST DANGOTE GROUP’S 

ANTI-UNION, ANTI-WORKER AGENDA AND MONOPOLISTIC CAPITALIST STRATEGY

 

The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has received and carefully studied the petition and alarm raised by our affiliate union, the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG), on the crude and dangerous anti-union practices, monopolistic agenda, and indecent industrial relations strategies being pursued by Alhaji Aliko Dangote and his associates. It must be realized that this is not the first complaint we are receiving against Dangote group. We have received several from other Unions with jurisdictions over the companies owned by the group. All of them verges on the same acts of impunity and unfair labour practices.  

We state without equivocation that the revelations contained in NUPENG’s statement represent not just an attack on petroleum workers, but a full-blown declaration of war against the Nigerian working class, trade unionism, and the principle of Decent Work. 

It exposes what has long been the questionable hallmark of the Dangote Group; a consistent record of union-busting, exploitative labour practices, and monopolistic capture of markets to the detriment of both workers and the Nigerian people. We have it on good authority that Dangote Refinery pays one of the lowest wages in the Oil and Gas sector in Nigeria today and treats its staff members beneath acceptable standards. 

Dangote group’s business model clearly enslaves and is not in any way developmental. 

The Nigerian people were promised that the Dangote Refinery and associated operations would create jobs, deepen industrialization, and promote national self-sufficiency. Instead, what we are witnessing is the classic playbook of primitive capitalism as the group resorts to monopolistic Capture. It is using State backing to eliminate competition and dominate entire sectors (cement, sugar, flour, and now petroleum products). It is boasting already of its rooting in the power structure and preparedness to continue using it against the Unions. 

Dangote group continues in its Union busting strategy has systematically denied workers their constitutional right to freedom of association by preventing them from joining trade unions of their choice, forcing them into ‘company unions’ designed to weaken collective power. We have had cause in African trade union circles to defend Dangote from complaints by workers of other African nations out of patriotic fervour but we have reached the point where remedial actions have become necessary.