Nuclear agency workers embarked on a 3day strike; lock out DG, directors

Activities at the Nigerian Nuclear Regulatory Authority were on Monday grounded as workers of the agency embarked on a three-day warning strike.

The workers, numbering about 100, started the industrial action following the expiration of a 14 days ultimatum handed down to management led by the Director-General, NNRA, Prof. Lawrence Dim.

As early as 7:00am, the workers blocked the entrance to the office of the DG and other Directors and prevented them from entering the premises.

The workers of NNRA, a parastatal under the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, were protesting against alleged lopsided appointments, over-invoicing of contracts, victimisation of union members and non-implementation of Joint Consultative Council agreements.

Armed security operatives were drafted to maintain peace and order in the premises of the NNRA, while some senior directors were seen discussing the issue in hushed tones under the trees outside the agency’s premises.

Several calls and SMS to two telephone lines of the DG to react to the warning strike were not replied.

The chairman, Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers Senior Staff Association of Nigeria, Ifreke Udeme, and his counterpart in National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers, Solomon Alkali, in a joint statement read to journalists, directed all zonal workers of the NNRA nationwide to comply with the strike accordingly.

Udeme said, “Armed mobile policemen are being paraded in the office premises at the instance of the management. This is totally unacceptable by the union because the safety of such fire arms inside an office is not guaranteed going by the spate of accidental discharges in the Nigerian Police Force. Therefore, management is required to withdraw policemen with automatic rifles from the office and provide an office for them.

“Available facts indicate that management is involved in the habitual over-invoicing of contracts. We frown at the rate and volume the country is being defrauded by this act, contrary to expectations that the NNRA, in partnership with the PENGASSAN and NUPENG, will be at the forefront of in the anti-corruption campaign of the Federal Government.

“Facts also indicate that in January 2016, management conducted a recruitment exercise. This exercise, in our perception, did not follow due process and procedures as stated in the Public Service Rules, because there was no publication of the recruitment in any of the national dailies as required by law.”