Dangote restores jobs after labour negotiations, but employees express concerns

The reinstated engineers had been caught in the crossfire between the Dangote Refinery and the Nigerian labour group Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSA).

Late in September, the Dangote Refinery announced the termination of staff contracts as part of a wider reorganisation of its operations after “cases of sabotage” in several units of the facility.

At the time, the refinery issued a statement noting that the decision was taken to protect the plant amid incidents that posed “serious risks to human life and safety.”

The statement read partly, “We remain vigilant to our internal systems and vulnerabilities to ensure the long-term stability of this strategic national asset,” the statement read. “It is imperative to protect the refinery for the benefit of Nigerians, our partners across Africa, and the thousands of people whose livelihoods depend on it.”

The company revealed that only a very tiny percentage of the employees were impacted by the restructure, with over 3,000 Nigerians still actively employed at the refinery.

However, earlier in October, the Refinery agreed to reinstate and redeploy the dismissed workers, following negotiations with labour representatives and government officials.

A recent report by the Punch showed that the engineers were now being posted to different parts of the West African country, including Northern states such as Borno, Zamfara, Benue, and others.

“They basically re-employed all of us to these places, under Dangote Projects,” one of the workers told The PUNCH.

In response, the workers expressed concerns that the deployment moved them to places they were unfamiliar with, especially places known for insecurity.

“The issue with the re-employment is that, firstly, there’s no address to report to on that letter. No office to report to at the states we were posted to. Secondly, those are security hot zones,” they told The PUNCH.

“Thirdly, in the letter, it is stated that if you don’t report within 14 days, your employment will be terminated, but no office location was given, and they don’t exist when we checked on Google Maps.

So, if we accept the letter, we are basically terminating our employment by ourselves because there’s no office in those states to report to.

PENGASSAN has basically told us not to accept the letters. We should let them continue with their talks,” they added.