ABUJA, Nigeria (AFX) - The two main oil-worker unions in Nigeria said they called off a strike planned for Monday to protest insecurity in the restive petroleum-producing region pending a meeting with President Olusegun Obasanjo.
The 20,000-strong blue- and white-collar unions had threatened the work stoppage after an increase in the number of kidnappings and oil-industry attacks across the southern Niger Delta area, where most of crude in Africa's oil giant is pumped.
Union officials said they were scheduled to meet with Obasanjo on Monday.
'We can't strike when the president has called us for a meeting,' said Peter Esele, head of the white-collar union, speaking for both groups.
'If he makes a commitment to provide security in the Niger Delta and the release of all the hostages, we will ask how he is going to do it, and if we are OK, then we will meet again to know what to do,' Esele told reporters late Sunday.
Government officials were not immediately available for comment.
Periodic oil-worker union strikes shut down fuel deliveries across Nigeria but rarely shut down production or exports from Africa's biggest producer of crude. Nigeria is the world's eighth-largest exporter and a main supplier of oil to the United States.
Kidnappings and militant attacks in the region where the crude is pumped has cut nearly one quarter of Nigeria's normal 2.5 million barrel per day output, helping send crude prices to historic highs.
Violence in the region is motivated both by criminality and by militancy, aimed at trying to force the federal government to give the region greater control of oil funds.
Hostage takings are common, but most captives are released unharmed though casualties occur in clashes between gunmen and the military. Captors set free nine Chinese hostages on Sunday, but more than two dozen foreigners remain in captivity.
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