The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) expressed regret for not participating in the August #EndBadGovernance protest, saying it was unfortunate that the Federal Government led by President Bola Tinubu does not value the opinions of the opposition. The NLC further noted that the use of the Department of State Services (DSS) and the Police to suppress those who disagree with government policies is evidence that dictatorship is beginning to seep into Nigeria under President Tinubu’s watch.
Speaking on Tuesday in an interview with Arise TV, NLC Head of Information Benson Upah claimed that the federal government intended to divert attention from organised labour with the ongoing detention of its officers.
“It is a diversionary tactic to sway us away from the path of focus and concentration. You know, the government has just introduced another band of PMS pricing, and does not want us to focus on that. So, it has to look for something else to divert our attention, so, it is part of this process that this has happened, and we consider it illegal, unlawful.
“Quite amazingly, this is being practiced by those who held themselves out yesterday as promoters of democracy. They should be ashamed of themselves. These are the very guys who went into exile doing this to innocent citizens believing that we will be cowed, but we will never be cowed. The Nigerian spirit is in us, it is a robust spirit, nobody is going to defeat this spirit in us. We are Nigerians, and we will continue to do the right thing.”
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“This is how dictatorship starts, it creeps in. People look the other way believing that it will not come to them.The NLC leader maintained that Ajaero was not given any invitation, nor was he avoiding the security agencies. He explained that even as of Tuesday, the DSS has not given any explanation for arresting and detaining Ajaero.
“For us, as far as we are concerned, no invitation was extended to us before this arrest, and up till now, no reasonable explanation has been given. We can only speculate. As I have said earlier on, the government has some policies that it wants to unravel and does not want any opposition voice to be heard.
“Government has been battering us and wants to be cheered, wants us to cheer it into our own graves. But we keep insisting, we’re not going to be cheerleaders, we will keep on protesting, even to the last drop of blood in us
“We can only speculate the motives of the government. Even if there was an interrogation that this was linked to the end hunger protests, I mean, we keep on seeing it as a façade, because I tell you, on July 22nd, we issued a statement stating clearly that we are not part of the protest. In the 23rd, we issued another unambiguous statement. On the 1st of August, we issued a clearer one, and everything points to the fact that we were not part of this protest.”
He clarified that the accusations of cybercrime, terrorism, and treasonable offences were all made up. He asserted that the authorities were aware of the offenders’ identities but chose not to pursue them.
“Looking back now, perhaps we should have joined this protest, because had we joined this protest, they would not even have had audacity to raid our headquarters in the first place had we joined this protest, because they know our capability, they know our capacity, and they know they will never underrate our will.
“We’ve got nothing to do with all of this, we’ve got nothing to do with subversion, we’ve got nothing to do with treasonable felony, we’ve got nothing to do with cybercrime, terrorism financing and all that, and these guys know it, they know those who are involved. They know them, but they are scared of going after them.”
