Recent media reports that the agreement between NUPENG and the Dangote Petroleum Industry collapsed before the ink dried on the paper is no surprise. Nigerians have seen such dramas too many times. Sadly, the ending is always the same, ordinary Nigerians pay the price.
Whenever NUPENG sneezes, Nigerians catch the cold. Filling stations slam their gates. Queues snake across streets. Tanker drivers vanish. Within hours, transport fares double, food prices jump, and small businesses grind to a halt.
If only NUPENG had applied this same fiery energy to defending citizens, the decades-long problems of fuel supply and pricing would have been solved. Instead, Nigerians remain trapped in a cycle of scarcity and suffering.
This ‘strike and suffer’ culture is not new. Recall in the late 1980s and 1990s, the National Union of Banks, Insurance and Financial Institutions Employees (NUBIFE) shut down the financial system at the slightest provocation? One major episode in 1991 crippled banks for days. Civil servants could not cash salaries. Traders could not access deposits. Cheques piled up. Customers rushed to withdraw cash before every threatened strike. The economy staggered.
When the dust settled, nothing changed. NUBIFE’s so-called struggles delivered little reform, only hardship.
Eventually, technology reduced their relevance. Their fire burned out, leaving behind memories of disruption, not transformation. NUPENG risks heading down the same path.
But NUPENG’s leverage is far greater. Its members control the arteries of Nigeria’s fuel supply tanker drivers, depot workers, oil servicing staff. With one strike notice, the entire economy can be frozen.
History is clear. In 1994, under General Sani Abacha, NUPENG embarked on a crippling strike that paralyzed fuel distribution nationwide. Abacha jailed union leaders and militarized depots. Nigerians suffered most trekking long distances, buying fuel at cutthroat black market prices, cooking with firewood.
The government survived, but citizens bore scars.
Again, sometime in 2012, when the Jonathan administration attempted to remove fuel subsidy, NUPENG joined labor and civil society in shutting down the country. Businesses closed. Flights grounded. Schools shut. Millions poured into the streets during the so called Occupy Nigeria protests. Government partially backed down, but ordinary Nigerians bore the heaviest burden.
Today, with Dangote’s refinery in the mix, the script appears to be repeating. Agreements collapse, threats fly, and once again, citizens might end up standing in endless queues with yellow jerry cans under the hot sun.
The pain is always borne by the common Nigerian. The Okada rider in Kano who cannot fuel his bike. The market woman in Kumo whose tomatoes rot because transport costs have doubled. The tailor in Ibadan whose shop generator has gone silent. The student in Kano trekking because bus fares have spiked. The family in Makurdi forced back to firewood because kerosene has vanished.
Ask anyone who has spent a night vigil at a filling station, trading insults in the queue, if they feel protected by NUPENG’s strike. The answer is bitterly obvious.
Strikes in Nigeria have become less of reform tools and more of blackmail strategies. From NUBIFE to ASUU to NUPENG, the pattern is the same. Leaders posture as defenders of the masses, but their actions cripple the very people they claim to represent.
When NUPENG withdraws services, Abuja politicians grumble but survive. The real devastation is on the street, where every Nigerian is forced to pay more, suffer more, and adjust more.
History teaches one thing: this fire does not last forever. NUBIFE once roared. Today, it is a shadow. The public adjusted. Technology clipped their wings. Their noise is remembered more for hardship than for heroism.
Methinks: NUPENG should learn from that. No matter how long they fan the embers, the fire will either consume them alienating them from the people or it will burn itself out.
And that is the tragedy.
NUPENG could have been a force for good. They could have demanded investment in refineries, transparency in subsidy management, cleaner depots, safer highways, and accountability in pricing. They could have written themselves into history as defenders of Nigerians.
Instead, Nigerians get noise, theatre, and endless cycles of pain. The same masses who have carried the burden of Nigeria’s broken petroleum system for half a century continue to suffer.
Government, too, cannot keep dancing to this tired tune. Nigeria must urgently reform its energy sector invest in refining, diversify energy sources, and deregulate with safeguards. A nation of 200 million people cannot be held hostage by a single union’s strike notice.
NUPENG must pause and ask: when history is written, will they be remembered as reformers who fought for Nigerians, or as another NUBIFE loud in its time but remembered only for the hardship it caused?
For the millions who have queued under the sun, slept in cars at filling stations, cooked with firewood, and paid double for transport, the verdict is already clear. Until NUPENG changes course, their collapsed deal with Dangote is just another act in Nigeria’s endless theatre of strikes. And as always, the people not the powerful will suffer the consequences.
Muhammad Gombe, a veteran Media Practitioner writes from Abuja. He can be reached through mlgombe@yahoo.com
