NLC Disagrees With Police Over Secretariat’s Invasion Explanations

The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) leadership has expressed dissatisfaction with the Nigeria Police Force’s justifications for why its officers ransacked the NLC national offices in Abuja and has demanded an unconditional apology from the force.

Police officials said that they had just located a possible criminal in the building that also happens to house the NLC headquarters, not that they had broken into the secretariat.

However, Head of Communications and Corporate Affairs Benson Upah laughed at police claims that they tracked down a suspected international criminal at the premises while speaking to reporters at the NLC Secretariat in Abuja. The NLC also issued a challenge to the police to produce documentation demonstrating any connection to the accused offender.

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The union leaders are also not backing down on their demand for an apology from the police, and for the federal government to stop what it called intimidation, and meddling in the affairs of labour unions, else they will be forced to use everything at their disposal including strike to defend their rights. The NLC had raised an alarm that heavily armed security personnel stormed and raided its headquarters in Abuja on August 8.

According to the union, the operatives stormed the Labour House, as its headquarters is called, around 8:30 pm.

“They broke in and ransacked the bookshop on the 2nd floor carting away hundreds of books and other publications,” said a statement by the NLC’s head of Media and Public Relations, Benson Upah.

“The invading troop claimed that they were looking for seditious materials used for the #EndBadGoveranance Protests,” the union said in a statement.