Photo caption: NNPC Ltd logo
By Charles Okonji
The Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) and Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN), have condemned the filling of top management positions in the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC Ltd) with external personnel.
According to a statement jointly signed by the General secretary of NUPENG, Comrade Afolabi Olawale, and General Secretary of PENGASSAN, Comrade Lumumba Ighotemu Okwugbawa, the development is troubling and unacceptable.
The statement reads; “We received a troubling communication from our in-house unions dated 4th of April, 2025 about management’s plans to hire top and middle level management externally.
“We are in total solidarity with our members in NNPC Ltd as there is no proven record that hiring externally has yielded any positive impact on the company.
“We could recall that when Dr Kachikwu was appointed to lead the company in 2015, he removed the entire top management team and brought in people from the IOCs. Literarily, all the Group Chief Operating Officers in the different directorates and lots of the MDs were brought in from outside the company. This act yielded no impact on the company bottom line but instead it stiffened the growth of career employees who had dedicated their entire working lives to the service of the then corporation and now company.”
The statement revealed that the recruitment was a way of gratifying friends and cronies, adding that detrimental to the growth of career workers in the company.
“We have critically examined that such recruitments over the years are either to satisfy cronies or pay back those that lobbied for their appointments to the detriment of the career growth of Nigerians who work in the company that has been properly trained over the years.
“We wholeheartedly welcome the new GCEO and the board members that were appointed by the President and Commander-in-chief on Wednesday 2nd of April, 2025 but unequivocally reject all
external appointments that the board made into M2 position and below on Friday 4th of April, 2025. We therefore demand that this should be rescinded immediately as we have put our in-house group councils and various organs of the unions on red alert as failure to abide by this demand will be met with fierce and serial industrial unrest.” The statement emphasized.
