The Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) has criticized the recent June 12 national honours, lamenting the exclusion of key oil and gas union leaders who played vital roles in the pro-democracy struggle that followed the annulled 1993 presidential election.
Speaking at a press conference in Abuja on Monday, PENGASSAN President, Comrade Festus Osifo, said while the posthumous Commander of the Order of the Niger (CON) award to late NUPENG Secretary General, Chief Frank Ovie Kokori, was well deserved, other major players from the industry were unjustly left out.
“We are quite happy that in the oil and gas industry a posthumous award was given to Chief Frank Kokori,” Osifo stated. “But we were a bit taken aback that some of the veterans in PENGASSAN who were strong advocates and heroes of June 12 were missed from the list—among them is the former President of PENGASSAN, Comrade Gani Owodunni and Comrade Milton Dabibi.”
President Bola Tinubu, during his Democracy Day address to a joint session of the National Assembly on June 12, had honoured a number of democracy icons including Kokori, the late Kudirat Abiola, Wole Soyinka, Femi Falana, and Humphrey Nwosu.
However, Osifo noted that the sacrifices made by other unionists during the military era, especially under General Sani Abacha’s rule, were equally significant.
“In fact, it was because they stood their ground to ensure that what was right was done,” he said. “PENGASSAN was prescribed in 1994 because there was a strike going on. The Abacha government pushed them consistently to call off the strike, but they refused. That was due to the doggedness of Comrades Owodunni and Dabibi.”
He called on the federal government to correct the oversight, stressing that those leaders were “true heroes of June 12.”
Despite the criticism, Osifo commended Nigerians for their resilience, saying: “We salute Nigerians for being resilient in the last 26 years. Irrespective of the hardship and challenges we face, we have emerged stronger and stronger.”
