The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has expressed displeasure with the FCT Police Command Commissioner, Bennett Igweh for “violently breaking up a peaceful protest at Unity Fountain on Thursday, July 18, 2024 by members of two of our affiliates, NASU and SSANU.”
NLC spokesperson, Benson Upah, who made this known in a statement on Thursday in Abuja, said the CP deployed armoured tanks, assault dogs and police personnel in battle gear and used excessive force and other hostile means to abort a peaceful protest
The statement said Igweh’s action contravened the 1999 constitution (as amended), ILO Conventions 87 and 98 and African Charter on People and Human Rights which guarantee freedom of association and speech.
He said CP Igweh violated “the Supreme Court ruling that citizens do not need the permit or approval of the police to peacefully protest and an insult to the dignity of self-respecting and law-abiding citizens.
“We need to let the powers that be, especially Compol Igweh and those who sent him that we are not in a Police State and if his intentions are to scare and intimidate workers protesting under the law, then they have picked on wrong customers.
“We fought for this democracy and we will not fold our hands and allow intestinal-minded people destroy it. We are concerned that officers like Compol Igweh who should be inspiring a new generation of officers away from the colonial traditions of policing are the ones leading the charge into the abyss.
The statement said “under Compol Igweh’s watch, FCT has been crawling with bandits, criminals and crooks (both in low and high places) even in the heart of the city. Life has never been this frightening for law-abiding citizens. Instead of training the turrets of his armoured tanks on these social misfits, it is peaceful workers that are his victims.
The reason for the peaceful protest by NASU and SSANU is very much in the public domain——non-payment of their four-months withheld salaries after workers in other unions were paid for the same strike action.
The NLC noted that “The two unions had exhausted all means lawful over a long stretch of time including a warning strike as means for getting their salaries paid.”
The NLC therefore demanded an immediate public apology to NASU and SSANU members whom they violated., and immediate payment of their withheld salaries.
