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Posted By Admin On October 8th, 2025

The Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, has countered Vice President Kashim Shettima for describing the Dangote Group as a national asset.

A statement by the NLC president, Joe Ajaero on Tuesday said no company, regardless of size or influence, is above the country’s labour laws.

Ajaero described Shettima’s remarks as a national tragedy, warning that they could signal that wealth and political clout override legal protections for workers, potentially undermining labour rights in Africa’s largest economy.

The NLC boss also accused the Dangote Group of infringing on workers’ rights to freedom of association, including the right to join trade unions of their choice, as enshrined in the Nigerian Constitution, the Labour Act, the Trade Union Act, and core International Labour Organisation conventions.

According to him, the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria, PENGASSAN, was fulfilling its mandate to protect members from exploitation and criticised attempts to portray union activity as sabotage or a threat to national interests.

Ajaero also called for stronger enforcement mechanisms to ensure compliance, insisting that human capital, not corporations, is the nation’s true asset

“We state unequivocally to Vice President Shettima: No company, no matter how big, ‘strategic’, or well-connected, can operate outside the law or be bigger than Nigeria. If the Dangote Refinery is to be granted rights and privileges above the law, then the government must be prepared for the storms such injustice will inevitably unleash. There can be no peace without justice.

“The serial violations of the ideals of decent work are a ticking time bomb,” Ajaero said.

“We will mobilise, we will organise, and we will fight back. There are no sacred cows,” he warned.

This comes after the sacking of roughly 800 workers at the Dangote Refinery after they joined PENGASSAN.

DAILY POST recalls that Shettima publicly condemned the industrial action as a minor labour dispute that should not hold Nigeria to ransom, stressing the refinery’s critical role in the economy.

The Vice President equally commended billionaire industrialist, Aliko Dangote for his investment in Nigeria and called for industrial harmony to maintain investor confidence.

It could also be recalled that the Federal Government’s intervention resulted to a conciliatory agreement under which the dismissed workers were reinstated, the strike suspended, and operations restored.

Source: https://dailypost.ng/2025/10/08/dangote-not-above-the-law-nlc-counters-vp-shettima/