- …demands action from govt
Members of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) on Wednesday protested over the security concerns in some parts of the country.
The Congress, despite meeting with President Bola Tinubu on Tuesday, proceeded with the protest.
Addressing reporters at the Labour house, the NLC Headquarters on Wednesday, NLC President Joe Ajaero said the protest would hold as planned.
Labour leaders, civil society allies, and Omoyele Sowore and his colleagues in the Revolution Now Movement joined the protest in Abuja.
There was also a deployment of security personnel, comprising the police, civil defence, and officials of the Department of State Service (DSS).
Ajaero said the meeting with the president did not lead to a cancellation of the protest.
“The meeting with the president yesterday never meant we cancelled the protest. We never spoke to the press on the cancellation of the protest,” he said.
“NLC is an organisation that has its own channels of communication. We never released any information that the protest was cancelled,” Ajaero added.
Ajaero said the NLC had written multiple letters to President Tinubu since 17 June regarding the state of physical, food, and financial security in the country.
However, none of the letters has been responded to, he said.
“It took this issue of action basically to protest and to listen to the physical and financial insecurity the workers are facing, and yesterday, through the Nigerian Governors Forum and the Progressive Governors Forum, we were able to secure a meeting with the president, and we listed all the issues, including the crisis in the academic institutions,” he added.
Ajaero said that the protest was not driven by sectional or partisan interests but by a collective demand to rescue Nigeria from deepening insecurity threatening lives, livelihoods, and national stability.
The NLC president urged the Federal Government to urgently deploy “the full machinery of governance” to reclaim communities seized by criminal elements, protect citizens, and restore public confidence in the state’s ability to guarantee security.
Workers gathered within and around the secretariat premises as labour leaders temporarily withdrew for consultations.
Also speaking, Deputy General Secretary of the NLC, Comrade Ismail Bello, said the protest was fundamentally about national survival and the collective well-being of Nigerians.
He said, “What we are doing today is not just for the benefit of workers alone; it is for the benefit of all Nigerians. As citizens, we have surrendered our sovereignty to the government in the hope that they will secure lives, protect citizens, and run the economy in a way that benefits the majority of our people, not just a few politicians.”
He stressed that Nigerians had paid an enormous price for the prolonged insecurity ravaging the country, with entire communities destroyed and livelihoods wiped out.
“We are reminding the world of the calamity that has befallen many communities and many workers; healthcare workers, nurses, teachers, transport workers, and others. The damage is enormous, and it has to stop,” he added.
Bello reaffirmed that the right to peaceful protest was constitutionally guaranteed, warning that no authority had the power to intimidate workers into silence.
“We are here on the streets reminding the government that nobody can gag us from exercising our right to freedom of association and freedom of assembly,” he said.
Calling for decisive action against kidnappers and criminal networks, Bello argued that the failure to punish perpetrators had emboldened insecurity across the country.
“People must return to normalcy. They should live in their communities. Children should return to school. Teachers and students must be protected. Our constitution guarantees that. All the government needs to do is to deploy all the powers and machinery of governance to recover all spaces that have been taken over by criminals,” he said.
Also speaking, Head of the International Department of the NLC, Comrade Uche Ekwe, said the protest was intended to strengthen the government’s resolve to confront insecurity head-on.
“If the government is truly committed, we want to strengthen their hands. The funding insecurity must be arrested and dealt with. If they think they are powerful, they should face the Nigerian people,” Ekwe said.
The NLC said insecurity in Nigeria, which has persisted for nearly two decades, has been marked by terrorism, banditry, and kidnapping, with devastating consequences for workers, families, and the national economy.
Labour disclosed that since 2009, more than 2,295 teachers have been killed by insurgents and bandits, while over 19,000 teachers have been displaced in Borno, Yobe, and Adamawa states. It added that more than 910 schools were destroyed, forcing about 1,500 learning centres to shut down or be converted into camps for internally displaced persons.
In the health sector, the NLC said about 35 per cent of healthcare facilities were destroyed by terrorism, while 50 per cent became inaccessible in the North-East.
It noted that dozens of health workers were kidnapped or killed between 2021 and 2024, worsening the already critical shortage of medical professionals in the country.
Labour further linked insecurity to deep-rooted socio-economic injustice, widening inequality, corruption, and poor funding of education and health sectors, warning that the economic costs were staggering.
It cited an estimated ₦300 billion loss during the 30 days of the JOHESU strike alone as a reflection of the broader systemic crisis.
According to the NLC, the protest marked a turning point, as labour demanded concrete reforms, including making Chapter Two of the Constitution justiciable, strengthening transparent security trust funds, accelerating the prosecution of corrupt officials, reforming the judiciary, protecting public spaces, and addressing inequality through wage justice.
The Congress described the protest as “the starting point of reclaiming Nigeria from the jaws of insecurity and beginning genuine national healing,” insisting that the struggle was ultimately about safeguarding the future of all Nigerians.
