- Pix above: Comrade Joe Ajaero, President, NLC wreathing in pains
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The National President of the Nigeria Labour Congress, Comrade Joe Ajaero, was earlier, today, Wednesday, arrested and brutalized in Owerri, Imo State capital, by operatives of the Nigeria Police Force. He was thereafter hospitalized following injuries given him.
NLC: We no go gree o, we no gree!
NLC’s Head of Information, Benson Upah, said Ajaero was picked up at the state secretariat of the congress and taken to an unknown location.
“President of the Nigeria Labour Congress, Joe Ajaero, was picked up a few minutes ago from NLC state council secretariat by heavily armed policemen in Owerri and taken to an unknown destination,” Upah told our correspondent via a text message.
Reports that the NLC had vowed to mobilise its members for a total strike in Imo State starting today, November 1, 2023.
Ajaero, during a press briefing on Sunday, had accused the Imo State Government of “violating the rights of the Nigerian workers in the state.”
Accusing the state governor, Hope Uzodimma, of neglecting workers’ welfare, Ajaero lamented that many of them have died because of the alleged lack of payment of their salaries.
He outlined some of the infractions against workers by Uzodimma to include the alleged refusal to implement previous agreements, especially the accord reached on January 9, 2021, outstanding salary arrears of about 20 months, unjust declaration of workers as ghost workers, declaration of pensioners as ghost workers and unsettled gratuity arrears, among others.
According to him, approximately 10,000 pensioners have been wrongly labelled as ghost pensioners resulting in over 22 months of unpaid pensions while about 11,000 workers have been branded by the Imo State Government as ghost workers.
The NLC president also lamented the non-compliance with the national minimum wage by the state government, adding that Governor Uzodinma has resisted the use of social dialogue and collective bargaining to resolve the issues.
Ajaero was however, left off the hook after his brutalization and eventual hospitalization at Federal Medical Centre, Owerri. This much was revealed by Human Rights Lawyer/Activist, Mr. Femi Falana, SAN, in a WhatsApp Platform. Falana in the chat had said: “We have secured Comrade Ajaero’s release. But he is in the hospital as he was brutalised by the police.”
This is even as human rights and labour communnities are already spoiling for war for the inhuman treatment meted out to the labour leader./SHARE THIS
- Tags: Comrade Joe Ajaero, Femi Falana, Gov Hope Uzodimma, NLC
