Mr. Lawal Danzaki, National President of the Association of Distributors and Transporters of Petroleum Products (ADITOP), has accused the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) and the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) of extorting truck owners and marketers, warning that such practices are worsening hardship for Nigerians.
Danzaki, who made the allegations during an interview on Channels Television on Tuesday, September 30, 2025, said the unions were collecting daily levies from petroleum marketers and truck owners who were not even their members.
As I’m talking to you now, the NUPENG PTD are getting a lot of money on daily basis from the truck owners and the marketers of filling station whereby we are not their members. Somebody that own filling station, a marketer, is not a NUPENG member or PENGASSAN. Somebody that own a truck is not their member, but they will put their shop for any depot that is loading. We must pay them between 100,000 to 150,000 before our truck load,” he said.
According to him, these charges eventually increase fuel prices for ordinary Nigerians. “And this kinds of money we are giving them, they are extorting us and at the end we are extorting Nigerians. The burden is going back to the Nigerians. Anybody that buys one liter in Nigeria, the NUPENG and PENGASSAN are getting money out of that,” Danzaki alleged.
The ADITOP President further criticized the unions for attempting to control the operations of private investors, including Africa’s largest refinery. “Dangote build his refinery. They wanted to control his refinery that when will he work and when he will not work. So this kind of thing that NUPENG and PENGASSAN are doing, they should come back to their drawing board. They know that their union is to help their workers and they will get their entitlement from the dues they are collecting from the salary of their workers,” he stated.
Danzaki also noted that union membership must be voluntary and should not be imposed on truck owners or petroleum marketers. “They have to understand that there is freedom of association. There is freedom of speech in this country. So they should not force people to be their members. That’s what they are doing all over the years,” he added.
