Ongoing efforts by the House of Representatives to resolve the NNPC nationwide strike failed as Diezani Alison-Madueke, minister of petroleum resources; leaders of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) and Nigerian Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas workers (NUPENG) shunned the mediatory meeting called by the joint House committee on petroleum (downstream & upstream) and gas resources.
On his part, however, Joseph Dawah, group managing director of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) in a letter to the committee, however, noted that the lingering crisis is “an internal affair”.
In his remarks, Muraina Ajibola, who presided over the session, stressed the need for the committee to send the right signal to the executive and Nigerians, noting that “the committee is at the verge of making history.”
In a swift response to the letter delivered by the NNPC liaison officer, the lawmakers namely Asita Honourable, Emmanuel Jime and Abdulmalik Cheche vehemently called for invocation of the appropriate sections of the constitution considering the flagrant and recurring disregard for the orders/resolutions of the parliament by the petroleum minister and NNPC.
Honourable, who expressed dismay over the derogatory content of the letter, emphasised the need for the members to “protect the authority and integrity of the parliament.”
The lawmaker, who condemned the disregard for the parliament over the past few years, noted that “it looks more like the military era where power is concentrated in one arm of government.”
