A group, National Unity Against Sabotage, (NUAS), has declare Comrade Osifo Festus, the 16th president of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria, (PENGASSAN), a persona non grata in all the public spaces of the 774 local government areas in Nigeria.
The group stated this yesterday in Asaba at the boundary between Delta and Anambra states during a protest and rally to end economic sabotage in the petroleum sector, insisting there will no longer be any space for him and his cohorts to operate and no where for them to hide their faces.
Comrade Igwe Ude-Umanta, leading other nine conveners, blocked the ever busy overhead bridge where the protesters lasted for hours, saying the movement was also meant to save the Dangote Refinery and strengthen the campaign for local oil refining in Nigeria.
While saying their reign is over and determined to reclaim the petroleum sector for the people, the body described itself as a powerful movement of the people to demand freedom from a heartless unpatriotic cartel that has held the country down.
It warned that it has become evident Nigerian people have risen to this very important and urgent occasion of national economic salvation by rooting out all manifestations of the Nigerian oil cartel, whether in the forms of PENGASSAN, NUPENG, DAPPMAN, PETROAN or government agencies.
“We therefore declare Festus Osifo a persona non grata in all the public spaces of the 774 local government areas in Nigeria. There will no longer be any space for him and his cohorts to operate and no way for them to hide their monstrous faces.
“Let us make it clear to PENGASSAN that they do not have the monopoly of madness. They may have gotten away with their crimes of economic sabotage and terrorism, because the Security Agencies have not considered the option on putting them behind bars, but the next funny move by them or their allies will be met with the severest citizens’ counter mass action.
No group is indeed bigger than this country.
“Though an act of gross economic sabotage and terrorism, we thank PENGASSAN for being frustrated enough to commit the crime they did some days ago, because it has awoken Nigerians to the reality of the subterranean and even open war against Dangote Refinery and the local refining project.
“Citizens have therefore risen up in defence of not only Dangote Refinery but other investors in the oil sector and other areas. We are no longer asleep in the manner we were when public refineries and other sectors were killed. This sabotage will never succeed.
“These people must leave the Dangote Refinery alone. The business space is wide. They should find their own spaces. Dangote Refinery has faced too many fights that nobody can pretend that there is no orchestrated attack on the business. When did it become a crime to invest and to do so patriotically?
“There are no longer spaces or opportunities for indifference and pretences. We have to take a side for the Nigerian economic prosperity, the sound economic logic in favour of this economic prosperity, and therefore, a firm stand against saboteurs.
“This Asaba rally is a reinforcement of our stand that there will no longer be oxygen for saboteurs of form or manifestation. We cannot let the gains of massive employment, huge revenue for the government, and a crash in petroleum product prices be threatened by anybody or group.
“So far, we thank President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for supporting local refining. We once again urge the government to continue using its instruments against sabotage and ensure constant crude supply to refineries at a fair price and to the quota volume due to it,” the group stated.
