The Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria, PENGASSAN, has rejected forced COVID-19 vaccination on Nigerians by the federal government.
PENGASSAN President, Mr Festus Osifo, said this in a statement he jointly signed with Mr Lumumba Okugbawa, General Secretary of the association, on Tuesday in Abuja.
Osifo said PENGASSAN had observed with dismay the recent directive accompanied with threats by the Presidential Steering Committee, PSC.
He said they considered the directive and threats as unbecoming, draconian and against the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria that the government pledged to always uphold.
Osifo noted that the association had earlier admonished providers of labour to sensitise and advocate its employees on the advantages of taking COVID-19 vaccines and not to issue threats to the workforce.
He further noted that there are myriads of issues plaguing the nation, seriously affecting the general populace which requires government attention to find urgent solutions to reduce the difficulties faced by the citizens.
Osifo said the association had noted that most of the recent macro-economic policies of the government had further exacerbated the economic hardship faced by the association’s members and Nigerians in general.
On the high cost of food, the union leader said the nation was fast degenerating into a land plagued with hunger as if the famine had descended on the beloved nation.
He noted that the purchasing power of the already-pauperized disposable income of the citizens had greatly degenerated as the cost of food in the market had gone up astronomically in the last three years.
Osifo warned against what he described as looming dangers caused by food insecurity, pointing out that farmers in states such as Benue, Plateau, Katsina, Nasarawa and Taraba cannot readily access their farmlands due to myriads of security challenges, stressing the need to secure the farmers and their farmlands as aggregate food production by the local farmers is the bedrock on which the systems of food security rests.
