OpeOluwani Akintayo
Lagos — The National Association of Itsekiri Graduates Worldwide has threatened to shut down all operations of Chevron Nigeria Limited in Itsekiri land within the next 28 days over casualisation of workers.
The group, in a statement by its National Secretariat in Ugbori, threatened to close operations in the region if the oil firm failed to reclassify the casualisation status of their members who had been engaged by the company for the past six years.
“We are therefore giving Chevron Nigeria Limited 28 days to commence or put to action the reclassification of our Itsekiri graduates of VTP5/OTP2 and VTP6, else we will have no choice than to shut down all CNL operations in our land,” the group said.
President of the Association, Ben Eburajolo, said that the demanded reclassification “should be backdated to January 2016 and January 2017 for Vocational Training Programme /Operational Training Programme 2 and VTP6 respectively”.
The association accused the international oil company of “gross marginalisation of our brothers and sisters far too long and we definitely cannot keep silent anymore’.
It tasked Chevron to further resume its Operation and Maintenance Training with employment in view immediately as enshrined in the subsisting Memorandum of Understanding.
They also asked for immediate resumption of Community Development in Oil Producing Areas as well as lighting up and provision of potable drinking water to all Itsekiri host communities.
