Vice President Kashim Shettima stated that Nigeria’s interests surpass those of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) amid the ongoing conflict between the association and the Dangote refinery.
Shettima made this statement on Monday, at the opening of the Nigerian Economic Summit 2025 in Abuja, stressing the critical importance of the 650,000-barrel-per-day Dangote Refinery and declared that it must be supported at all costs to succeed.
He said that the $20 billion facility is a national asset that must be supported to function.
“Aliko Dangote, he’s not an individual, he’s an institution, and he’s a leading light in Nigeria’s economic parliament. And how we treat this gentleman will determine how outsiders will judge us. If he had invested $10 billion in Microsoft, in Amazon, or in Google, he probably might be worth $70 to $80 billion by now.
“But he opted to invest in his country, and we owe it to future generations to jealously protect, promote, preserve, and protect the interests of this great Nigeria.
“I wish to call for caution, retrospection, and a deeper sense of patriotism from both labour and the organised private sector in defining and improving the relationship between labour and industry in the interest of maintaining our steadily improving economic fortunes. It’s not about holding the whole nation to ransom because of a minor labour dispute.
“Nigeria is greater than PENGASSAN. Nigeria is greater than each and every one of us. I’m not coming to you as a partisan,” Shettima said.
