The Federal University of Petroleum Resources, Effurun (FUPRE), has reaffirmed its position on the non-recognition of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) and the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) as staff unions within the institution.
Established in March 2007, FUPRE is Africa’s first petroleum university and the sixth of its kind globally. Despite its oil and gas focus, FUPRE is under the purview of the Federal Ministry of Education, not the Ministry of Petroleum Resources—making its industrial relations structure more aligned with academic institutions than petroleum-sector organisations.
A key development reinforcing this position came through a 2021 judgment by the National Industrial Court of Nigeria (NICN), which dismissed a suit by PENGASSAN seeking legal recognition to unionise senior staff at the university. The court, presided over by Justice B.B. Kanyip, ruled that FUPRE falls outside PENGASSAN’s jurisdiction as outlined under Nigeria’s Trade Unions Act.
Justice Kanyip, in suit NICN/ABJ/319/2021, ruled that the union lacked merit in its request, noting that PENGASSAN was created to represent oil and gas sector workers—not university staff governed by the Ministry of Education and the National Universities Commission (NUC).
“The claimant is not entitled to organise and negotiate similar conditions of service on behalf of the senior staff in [FUPRE],” the judgment read in part.
In addition, the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment, in a letter dated May 7, 2021, also clarified that PENGASSAN and NUPENG do not have the legal jurisdiction to operate within FUPRE. Signed by the ministry’s Director of Trade Union Services and Industrial Relations, Mrs. O.U. Akpan, the letter underscored that FUPRE’s staff cannot be organised under petroleum-based unions.
Reinforcing the position, the FUPRE Governing Council at its 59th regular meeting on October 25, 2024, upheld the ban on PENGASSAN and NUPENG activities on campus. A letter signed by the university’s Registrar, Dr. Jane Omoyine, confirmed that unionisation of FUPRE staff by both unions was “declined and the matter laid to rest.”
The decision aligns FUPRE with staff unions typical of Nigerian universities—such as the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU), and the National Association of Academic Technologists (NAAT)—rather than industry-based trade unions like PENGASSAN and NUPENG.
