NUPENG: The cartel’s proxy fighter against Dangote Refinery? By Idris Muhammed Abdullahi

The Nigerian oil industry has never been short of intrigue, but the unfolding drama between the Dangote Refinery and the Nigerian Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) raises troubling questions that go beyond routine labour disputes. Increasingly, NUPENG’s actions appear less like the agitation of a trade union fighting for workers’ rights and more like the tactical manoeuvres of a proxy fighter serving the entrenched cartel interests that fear the rise of a game-changing competitor.

● A Refinery under siege

Aliko Dangote’s $20 billion refinery is Africa’s largest single-train refinery and perhaps Nigeria’s best shot at ending decades of dependence on imported petroleum products. It promises to break the stranglehold of fuel importers, eliminate distortions in pricing, and tilt the balance of power in the downstream sector. For those who have fed fat on the inefficiency of the old order, the refinery is an existential threat.

It is against this backdrop that NUPENG’s aggressive stance begins to look suspicious. From threats of strikes to allegations of union suppression to public campaigns painting Dangote as hostile to workers, the union’s playbook mirrors the very disruptions that benefit the old fuel import cartel.

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● Union rights or economic sabotage?

Workers deserve the right to unionise and negotiate fair conditions. But the timing, scale, and relentlessness of NUPENG’s interventions suggest something more coordinated than spontaneous labour activism.

Why has the refinery, still in its delicate take-off phase, become the union’s favourite battlefield, while other chronic violations in the sector draw less fury?

Even more telling is NUPENG’s choice of weapons. Instead of picketing the company directly, the traditional method of targeting an alleged violator , the union escalated to a national strike, threatening to paralyse the entire country. This was not mere protest; it had the markings of a coordinated takeover strategy, designed to send a message well beyond labour solidarity. Let’s tell ourselves the truth: this is too early, too sweeping, and too suspicious to ignore.

● Speaking personally

Let me be clear: I am no admirer of Dangote. In fact, my family carries scars from its operations. A Dangote driver once ruined my brother’s life and nearly killed him in an avoidable accident. That wound is personal, deep, and unforgettable.

Yet, as a patriotic Nigerian, I must rise above personal grief to speak on what is right for our country. The refinery and its owner deserve a breathing space. The company is still in its infancy. It does not yet have a going concern status, and it has not even broken even. To suffocate it now, at the hands of a union acting like a cartel’s proxy, is to sabotage Nigeria’s economic lifeline before it has the chance to deliver.

● Who benefits?

The question is simple: who gains if the refinery falters? Not the Nigerian masses who crave affordable fuel and energy security. Not the government, desperate for jobs and foreign exchange savings. The beneficiaries would be the entrenched cartel of fuel importers, middlemen, and distribution interests whose billion dollar pipelines of rent would dry up if Dangote succeeds.

Seen in this light, NUPENG’s agitation begins to look like the perfect smokescreen labour rhetoric shielding cartel sabotage.

● A call for vigilance

Nigeria cannot afford to let the refinery, the crown jewel of private industrial investment, be strangled under the guise of union disputes. Government must respect labour rights, but it must also interrogate whether those rights are being weaponised by vested interests to wage economic warfare.

Transparency is key. NUPENG must open its books, disclose its funding sources, and prove it is acting solely for workers. Anything less will cement the impression that it has become a willing tool of the very cartels Nigeria must dismantle to move forward.

History will not forgive a Nigeria that allows its most promising industrial leap in decades to be suffocated at birth. NUPENG has a choice: remain a genuine labour union or become remembered as the cartel’s proxy that tried to bring Dangote Refinery to its knees.