The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has carried out its threat to picket and protest against the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, over his alleged delay to inaugurate the board of the Nigerian Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF), which the labour leaders claim is chaired by Frank Kokori.
The protesters were however, met with stiff resistance from a group suspected to be thugs allegedly hired by the minister, who attacked the protesting workers with sticks and stones, and chased them away from the private residence of the minster.
The NLC had told a news conference on Tuesday that it will embark on picketing the minister today(Wednesday) and as early as 7 am the labour movement led by NLC President Ayuba Wabba, blocked the entrance to the Asokoro private residence of the minister in Abuja with two fuel tanks.
NLC had given the minister an ultimatum to inaugurate the board with Kokori as the chairman, and that ultimatum expired on May 1, which led to Wednesday’s protest.
The NLC president, while briefing reporters on Wednesday during the protest, described the attack on workers as “barbaric” adding that maximum force has been use upon workers and live bullets used on them.
“Whereas workers went with bare hands, the thugs were carrying weapons and arms. And as I talk to you, we have four people in the hospital apart from those that were injured by bullets.”
Wabba vowed that NLC was going to invite more workers to continue the protest, saying, ‘’we are going to invite our largest organ by tomorrow.”
He threatened that unless President Muhamadu Buhari intervened, the workers would continue the protest, stressing that they would call on the central working committee of the labour movement for further action.
“It has never been so bad where a minister of Labour will bring thugs to attack workers. That has never been heard. It is on record and everybody has seen it,” Wabba said.
“That is our position and now we are here to demonstrate in his office also to show that we are not happy,” he explained.
“Therefore Mr President must act on this immediately. Workers voted and supported him. Ngige cannot in any circumstance assume the power the president. That cannot be the case.”
Also speaking, William Apkoreha, President of National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas (NUPENG) claimed that two of his members were missing following the attacks by thugs at the minister’s resident.
“We are embarking on peaceful protest as two of my members are missing and I cannot fold my arms. We will maintain sanity until 12 midnight,” he said.
“If we did not hear a word from them, then every oil and gas worker in the country will enter the street to look for their members,” he said.
The labour movement has been at loggerheads with the Minister over the delay in the inauguration of the board of NSITF, claiming that the minister wants to run the fund as a sole administrator, which is against the law.
It would be recalled that the inauguration of the board was postponed two weeks ago with labour unions protesting what they described as the removal of Frank Kokori as the Chairman of the board and his replacement with Austin Enejamo-Isere. The Minister has however, stated that his decision was in consonance with the NSITF Act.
