Onyebuchi Ezigbo in Abuja
Organised labour below auspices of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has alleged that the Federal Authorities has perfected plans to assault its members throughout its scheduled February 27 peaceable rallies throughout the nation.
With reference to the February 27 and 28 proposed nationwide protest rally, NLC mentioned the employees have remained resolute, decided and ready to specific their ache and grief in a peaceable method.
A press release signed by the NLC President, Comrade Joe Ajaero, alleged that one of many teams being primed to assault the protesters throughout the peaceable rallies is the Nigeria Civil Society Discussion board (NCSF).
The labour motion urged the worldwide human rights physique and the governments of the African Union (AU) and the United Nations (UN) to notice that the appropriate of the individuals to peacefully protest is being threatened.
The NLC had declared a two-day nationwide protest for February 27 and 27 in opposition to the worsening hardship within the land and alleged Federal Authorities’s non-implementation of the settlement reached on palliatives to cushion the results of the elimination of gasoline subsidy on employees and basic public.
NLC President, Ajaero, whereas addressing the media in Abuja on the resolutions of the Nationwide Govt Council (NEC) assembly of the labour motion held Friday morning, mentioned that organised labour was displeased by authorities’s continued delay in executing the settlement it reached with the employees since October 2023.
Within the assertion, NLC mentioned: “We’d need to inform Nigerians that the state has perfected plans to assault our peaceable rallies throughout the nation.
“One of many teams being primed to assault our peaceable rallies is by a nebulous title, Nigeria Civil Society Discussion board (NCSF).
“NCSF is likely one of the emergency teams put collectively, funded, promoted and remote-controlled by authorities to trigger violence in opposition to our members for electing to peacefully protest in opposition to the starvation within the land.
“We’d need the state to know that the answer to our horrible financial scenario and starvation shouldn’t be by suppressing peaceable dissent or inflicting violence on peacefully protesting residents as the federal government did in Minna and different cities the place its brokers tear-gassed and beat up girls earlier than locking them up for elevating their voice in opposition to starvation. It doesn’t lie within the deployment of state-sponsored terror. The pangs of starvation can’t be cowed by bullets or tear fuel.
“In mild of this, we on the Nigeria Labour Congress and civil society allies are shifting forward with our protest rallies in opposition to financial hardship and insecurity in keeping with the choice of the Nationwide Govt Council.
“As residents, we have now a elementary proper to peaceable protest and historical past bears us witness that our protests are at all times peaceable besides in cases of state-engineered violence.”
The labour union additional said that: “In mild of this, we advise the state to placed on its pondering cap and discover options to the pains it continues to trigger the individuals as a substitute of additional dehumanizing them.
“Nonetheless, whether it is irrevocably set on the trail of violence in opposition to us and different peace-loving Nigerians, it is going to be making a expensive mistake as a result of if we’re attacked, there might be a complete shut down through withdrawal of providers by employees. Let nobody be deceived, we and different disadvantaged Nigerians can not simply be intimidated.
“Lest these in energy now who could have forgotten be reminded, we confronted a extra resourceful and resilient adversary in an effort to have democracy. All we’re saying now’s that; let there be meals for the individuals, let the individuals stay in security, let the individuals stay a lifetime of dignity devoid of suffocating IMF/World Financial institution financial insurance policies.
“As soon as once more we advise these ready within the wings to unleash violence on us that this isn’t in regards to the NLC however about Nigerians who’re saying ‘sufficient is sufficient’, a few individuals who have resolved to not be additional pushed into the pit of distress and hopelessness, whereas a couple of stay in obscene luxurious at our collective expense.
“We’re by this assertion calling the eye of the worldwide human rights physique and the governments of the African Union and the United Nations that the appropriate of the individuals to peacefully protest and demand for freedom from financial slavery and hardship is being threatened by the Nigerian State.
“We nonetheless stay resolute, decided and ready to specific our ache and grief in a peaceable method as Nigerians come twenty seventh and twenty eighth of February 2024.”
