Oil Workers End Strike After Govt Pledges no Job Cuts

Nigerian unions on Thursday ended a day-old strike against the revamp of the beleaguered state oil firm after a minister promised there would be no job cuts.The strike, launched on Wednesday, came amid spiralling oil prices due to a domestic shortage and was called by the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria and the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers. The unions said they had not been informed of the plan to streamline the inefficient and corrupt Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation but called it off after junior oil minister Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu said that the restructuring would not entail any lay-offs. The strike worsened a fuel shortage in Africa’s biggest oil producing country, where long queues of cars in the roads waiting for gas at petrol stations has caused the commercial hub of Lagos to gridlock for over a week. “The strike was called off around 5:00am (0400 GMT) this morning at the end of an all-night meeting with union officials,” Ohi Alegbe, a spokesman for the national oil firm, said.