Fifteen staff members of the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority have sued the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria over their suspension and the subsequent appointment of a caretaker committee for the NMDPRA branch in Abuja.

The fifteen members, suing for themselves and as concerned members of the PENGASSAN NMDPRA branch, dragged the PENGASSAN leadership before the National Industrial Court sitting in Abuja, in suit NICN/ABJ/307/2025.

The aggrieved members are asking the court to declare that, by the provision of the PENGASSAN Constitution 2022, the affairs of a branch of the association cannot be administered with a caretaker committee for more than three months, within which time a branch election must be conducted, among other reliefs.

The defendants in the suit are PENGASSAN, its National President, Festus Osifo; General Secretary, Lumumba Okugbawa; Tony Izogba; Gbolahan Akinyo; Okechuwku Nwanko; Abba Safana; and Polycarp Ihejirika, who are all members of the controversial caretaker committee.

The legal battle adds a new dimension to the crisis in the NMDPRA branch of PENGASSAN, a dispute that culminated in the suspension of over 40 members by the PENGASSAN national leadership.

This is the latest in a series of controversies between PENGASSAN and some of its branches, as the association is also having a running battle with the branches in Shell, Chevron, and the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board.

Meanwhile, the National Industrial Court sitting in Lagos had also previously ordered all parties involved in a leadership dispute at the Chevron branch of the PENGASSAN to maintain peace and cooperate with the court.

Trial judge Justice Joyce Onugba-Damachi gave the directive while hearing the suit filed by seven Chevron senior staff who are challenging the union’s national leadership over the dissolution of the branch’s executive committees and the installation of a caretaker committee.

Those staff members rejected the caretaker committee for the branch, which was installed by the National Secretariat of PENGASSAN, describing the decision, announced on June 27, as unconstitutional.