Official and business activities were grounded at the Petroleum Product Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) on Tuesday in Abuja and the entire country following a protest by staff of the agency over alleged imposition of an acting executive secretary of the agency.
Stephanie Oyoyo, a senior staff of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), was said to have assumed duty as acting executive secretary four days after the immediate past scribe of the agency Farouk Ahmed handed over to Moses Mbaba, the most senior official of the organisation.
The workers dressed in red apparel converged at the main entrance to the agency’s headquarter in Abuja to chant and express discontent over the development. Visitors who had business to transact with the agency were denied access as the workers said the agency remained shut till further notice.
Chairman of the PPPRA chapter of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) Victor Ononokpono told our reporter that the staff were concerned that PPPRA was having two executive secretaries within 48 hours. He called on the federal government to immediately address the issue of who the actual executive secretary so as to avert an imminent crisis at the agency.
