The Labour Party, on Wednesday, condemned the invasion of its party secretariat by the leadership of the Nigeria Labour Congress, led by Joe Ajaero.
The National Publicity Secretary of the Labour Party, Abayomi Arabambi, called for Ajaero’s arrest for “treason” for allegedly planning a political insurrection against the Federal Government through conduct likely to cause a breach of peace with his call on students, market women and leaders, thugs and other miscreants to invade the 36 states chapter of Labour Party offices as this can lead to breakdown of law and order.
The NLC had on Tuesday directed its members to mobilise workers and lay siege to LP secretariats across the country to protest the party’s national convention planned for March 27.
The circular jointly signed by the Chairman and Secretary of the NLC Political Commission, Titus Amba and Chris Uyot, respectively also demanded the immediate resignation or sack of the National Chairman of the Labour Party, Julius Abure, over the alleged ‘financial rascality and contempt of the union president, Joe Ajaero.’
Expectedly, scores of protesting NLC members forced their way to LP national headquarters in Abuja on Wednesday chanting solidarity songs and calling for the head of the party leadership.
They were however prevented from gaining access to the party secretariat by security operatives posted to the area to maintain order.
But addressing a press conference on Wednesday in Abeokuta, Ogun State, the LP National Publicity Secretary, Arabambi, called for Ajaero’s arrest.
He said the call for the picketing and subsequent invasion and destruction of the Labour Party national office by the NLC was illegal, archaic and not in tandem with modern democracy.
He said, “We are now fully prepared to shed our blood in defence of our party leadership, as all unconventional or illegal means to hijack our party leadership, against the rule of law shall be met with force and this is not a threat.
“We shall defend our party leadership from being taken over by the NLC political terrorists; we are prepared to dislodge the NLC miscreants from the party national secretariat as nobody has the monopoly of violence.
“For anybody to illegally declare himself either as chairman, secretary or anything, we urge all workers anywhere in the country, to arrest them and bring them to us.
“Joe Ajaero has a penchant for civil disobedience, arrogation of rights and privileges of other citizens to himself because, when a matter is pending before a court, and in this case, the Supreme Court, all parties are to maintain the status quo as decided by the Court of Appeal.
“Our belief is that if there are any scores to settle, the NLC should have gone to court and allowed due process to take its course rather than coercing political parties to dance to their tunes as if they were dealing with the corporate organisation.
“NLC is a movement which by every standard should remain apolitical. There are thousands and one issues that affect Nigerian workers today, which the NLC has failed woefully to fight for.
“The set of NLC leadership as we have today is a failure who put an elephant on the head and scratched for rats on the grounds.”
Quadri Olaitan is a journalist and contributor to Freelanews.com, covering news, public affairs, and human-interest stories.
