* After late night meeting with Tinubu, others
Members of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) have begun gathering at the NLC Secretariat in Abuja for a nationwide protest against the rising insecurity across the country.
Some of those already at the Secretariat include the President of the NLC, Joe Ajaero, and civil society allies.
Notable among them are Omoyele Sowore and his colleagues in the Revolution Now Movement
There is also a deployment of security personnel on the ground, comprising the police, civil defence, and officials of the Department of State Service (DSS).
Ajaero had earlier said that the union’s planned nationwide protest remained sacrosanct.
“I am not sure you have gotten any contrary view that it is not holding. So, unless you have gotten a contrary view, then we can take it from there. The protest is to help this country – to call to attention the effect of insecurity,” he stated shortly after a courtesy visit on the Chairman of the nineteen Northern States Governors’ Forum and Governor of Gombe State, Inuwa Yahaya, in Gombe, the capital city of the State.
Ajaero decried the negative effects of insecurity on Nigeria’s economy, particularly how it is turning away investors, saying that insecurity, “is affecting even investors coming into this country”.
According to the NLC President, the protest is aimed at awakening the government to its responsibilities of tackling crushing economic hardships, insecurity, banditry, and other abnormalities in the country.
Citing examples of how insecurity is affecting workers and everyone else, Ajaero said, “Many workers are being kidnapped on a daily basis. People are killed. In the case of Kebbi, the person killed was a teacher.
“The children who are kidnapped are the children of workers. So, we need to ask the government to help them fish out the perpetrators of this.”
While calling on all Nigerians to play a part in ending the negative developments in Nigeria, Ajaero called for a total overhaul of our value system, describing banditry and kidnap for ransom as acts that are alien to our value system as a people.
Speaking further, Ajaero added, “Unless the government is interested in giving us what is called an insecurity allowance because most of the workers kidnapped borrow money, look for someone to pay for their ransom,” the NLC President said.
“So it’s getting to a dimension that we have to equally add our own. We don’t have a gun, we don’t have matchete to go into the bush to look for the people involved, but this is our only contribution, the only way that we are going to tell Nigerians and the international community that this should stop.
“This is not the culture of Nigerians – culture of banditry and insecurity is not the culture of Nigerians. So, we have to condemn it moving forward, and then with that, you strengthen the hands of those in authority to make sure that this does not continue.
Meanhile, President Bola Tinubu, on Tuesday night, met with leaders of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) at the State House, Abuja, in a last-ditch effort to halt the union’s proposed nationwide protest over insecurity.
The NLC had declared a nationwide protest for December 17, citing what it described as the country’s “degenerating security situation.” The President of the NLC, Joe Ajaero, led the labour leaders to the closed-door meeting.
Speaking to State House correspondents after the meeting, Ajaero declined to confirm whether the protest would proceed as scheduled.
“If I’m insisting (on proceeding with the strike), I’m not insisting. I will communicate to you,” he said.
He stressed that decisions of the NLC are taken collectively, not unilaterally.
“It is not an organisation that one person rules. Let’s go back now. You have a meeting of labour and the governors’ forum.
“We’ll go back to the drawing board, digest all that Mr. President said to us, and move forward from there,” Ajaero said.
He said the NLC leadership would reconvene early on Wednesday to review the outcome of the engagement.
“We came for consultation with the President, and we are finished. So, we have to go back to our meeting and then continue tomorrow,” he added. By tomorrow (Wednesday), we will get the outcome,” Ajaero said.
The NLC is expected to announce early on Wednesday whether the planned protest will go ahead or be suspended.
The meeting was also attended by the Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Governors’ Forum and Governor of Imo, Sen. Hope Uzodimma; Governor of Edo, Monday Okpebholo; Governor of Kebbi, Nasir Idris; and the Minister of State for Labour, Mrs Nkeiruka Onyejeocha.