Nigeria's oil unions Monday began a three-day warning strike over growing insecurity in the oil-rich Niger Delta.
"The strike has begun today and will go on until Wednesday," the president of the white-collar Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria, Babatunde Ogun, told Platts.
Ogun said Pengassan and the blue-collar Nupeng union would embark on an indefinite strike if the government fails to address the growing level of kidnappings and violence in the region.
He said union officials would meet with Nigeria's oil minister Diezani Alison-Madueke and labor minister Emeka Wogu for talks in Abuja today.
"We need a commitment from government to stop the growing violence. The the lives of our workers have been endangered and we cannot continue like this," Ogun said.
Ogun said there has been an increasing level of kidnappings around the oil city of Warri and Delta, Edo and Ondo states, in recent weeks.
Retail service stations were expected to run out of fuel today after the unions ordered a halt to the delivery of petroleum products in the Warri area as of midnight October 9.
The Nigerian government offered amnesty to gunmen in 2009 urging militants to lay down their weapons in a bid to end the unrest which cost the African top oil exporter billions of dollars in revenue.
Over 8,000 Nigerian armed youths gave up their weapons but critics argue the program failed to address the root causes that initially motivated the militants such as unemployment in the region and the lack of basic services.
The Trade Union Congress of Nigeria last week also expressed concern over growing level of insecurity in the country and called for an overhaul of the nation's security system.
"The numerous bombings and wastage of lives and property going on in the northern states of Nigeria by the Boko Haram sect are unacceptable," it said in a statement.
The Islamist sect known as Boko Haram has been blamed for scores of shootings and bomb blasts, mainly in the country's northeast, in recent months. It claimed responsibility for the August 26 UN bombing in Abuja that killed at least 23 people, one of the deadliest ever targeting that body.
