'Undemocratic!' Wike allegedly disrupts union meeting, seals secretariat

Chairperson of the Rivers State chapter of the Nigeria Labour Congress, Beatrice Itubo, has accused the state government of disrupting the union’s meeting on Sunday.

Beatrice said thugs led by a councilor in the state stormed the Medical and Health Union Workers Union state secretariat, disrupting the meeting and inflicting injuries on participants.

She said the thugs chased the workers out of the venue using dangerous weapons.

They also vented their anger on properties and vehicles within the vicinity, she added.

“We actually scheduled a meeting of the state executive council in line with the directive of the national secretariat that we should meet with our ULC brothers and integrate. So, two men came to us, one of them introduced himself as the councilor of Ward 7, Obiakpo, and they have a directive from above that the meeting should not hold.

“Then we saw a lot of boys, they started banging everywhere, the vehicles, and chased us away. I don’t know when our state got to this level that workers can’t meet. They have locked the secretariat they said they built for us, now this one that is our own they don’t want us to use it.

“There are several states that have issues with labour and they have been dialoging.

“Today they said they came with a mandate and I want to put it on record, should anything happen to any labour leader in the state, the government of the day should be held responsible cause they have started to unleash a lot of arsenal on us. They have decided to bring bad boys to hunt us and we are aware and we are also watching. So the people should be aware, the Federal Government should be aware, the international community should be aware that if anything happens to any labour leader in this state, the government should be held responsible,” she said.