NLC Slams Vice President Shettima Over Dangote Refinery Remark, Says No Company Is Above the Law

The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has strongly criticized Vice President Kashim Shettima for describing the Dangote Refinery as a “national asset,” saying the statement portrays the federal government as defending lawlessness at the expense of Nigerian workers’ rights.

In a statement issued on Tuesday to mark the World Day for Decent Work, NLC President Joe Ajaero accused the Vice President of “protecting capital over citizens” and warned that the continued disregard for workers’ welfare was “a ticking time bomb.”

“The serial violations of the ideals of decent work are a ticking time bomb,” Ajaero said. “We will not surrender the rights of Nigerian workers on the altar of profit. We will mobilize, we will organize, and we will fight back. We insist that there are no sacred cows.”

The NLC’s statement follows a recent dispute between the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) and Dangote Refinery over alleged labour violations and denial of workers’ rights to unionize.

Ajaero condemned the Vice President’s alleged remark suggesting that the refinery should be exempt from labour laws, describing it as a “national tragedy.”

“To suggest that the Dangote Group, because it is a national asset, can operate outside the law is an affront to the rule of law,” the statement read. “It is a public declaration that capital, when sufficiently concentrated, is above the law — that money is sovereign and can undermine decent work.”

The NLC said the refinery’s management had “brazenly violated” workers’ constitutional rights to freedom of association, despite Nigeria being a signatory to core International Labour Organisation (ILO) conventions.

“Dangote, with its illegal actions, is not a national asset but a national tragedy,” the union declared. “The group’s actions undermine the tenets of decent work in spite of all the concessions and privileges it enjoys from the Nigerian State.”

Ajaero accused the government of abdicating its constitutional duty to protect workers and instead siding with “greedy private employers.”

“For the government to side with the oppressor against the oppressed is a declaration of a class war it can ill afford,” he said.

The NLC also linked the controversy at Dangote Refinery to wider labour violations in other sectors, including the reported mass sack of workers at the NLNG Train 7 project in Bonny, Rivers State.

The union demanded that the federal government enforce full compliance with Nigeria’s labour laws and end what it called the “sacred cow syndrome.”

“No company, no matter how big or strategic, can operate outside the law or be bigger than Nigeria,” Ajaero stated. “If the Dangote Refinery is granted privileges above the law, the government must be prepared for the storms that such injustice will unleash. There can be no peace without justice.”

The NLC reiterated its call for stronger enforcement mechanisms to ensure compliance with industrial relations laws and the protection of workers’ rights across all sectors.