The Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, said the federal government is on a mission to incriminate it and willfully indict its leadership by accusing them of playing part in the hunger protest.
Recall that the security operatives invaded NLC Abuja headquarters while workers had closed for the day, with police Inspector General, Kayode Egbetokun, responding to the public outrage that greeted the invasion: “One of them(protesters) was traced to the Labour House the other day. I was just wondering why the noise about the raid of the Labour House when the police did not raid the Labour House.
“We raided the shop where the individual was using as a front. We have been monitoring his activities, he was very active in the Sudan crisis, and he is in Nigeria mobilising people to destabilise our country.”
On Thursday in Abuja at a press conference, NLC leaders accused the police of lying.
Through its spokesperson, Benson Upah, it said the government’ plan was to implicate the Labour leaders over the protest and meddle in the internal affairs of the union.
“We want to reiterate that even though we are the owners of barricades, we did not participate in the #Endhunger protest.
“The government, therefore, should not rope us into something we knew nothing about. Accordingly we ask the government to release those in its custody, including a NUEE executive (Comrade Opalua Eleojo), who was arrested at a social spot in Abuja.
“We advise the government to stop further acts of intimidation against the Nigeria Labour Congress and indeed against the generality of Nigerians,” NLC said.
It went on to level oppression, and attempt to force a regime change within the union against government, saying, “The Registrar of Trade Unions, acting on orders from above wrote a letter of threat on our relationship with the Labour Party, citing Section 15 (2) (3) (4) of the Trade Unions Act.
“In their bid to suppress our voice, they forgot the provisions of sections 39 to 40 of the 1999 Constitution, as amended; the Supreme Court decision on the right of public servants to hold political views; the provisions of the African Charter on People and Human Rights, as well as ILO Conventions 87 and 98.
“The government is also frantically working to reduce to two the number of years trade unionists could hold office. This constitutes a gross interference in the internal running of the trade unions in violation of the corpus of Labour Law and ILO Conventions.”
