The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has cautioned the Police against starting an “undemocratic agenda” following the siege at the office of the Committee for the Defence of Human Rights (CDHR) at Ikeja, Lagos.
President of NLC, Comrade Joe Ajaero in a statement on Friday in Abuja, expressed concerns over recent behaviour of the Police against the fundamental rights of citizens and organisations.
While condemning the siege on the headquarters of CDHR) at Ikeja, Lagos by the Nigeria Police, the NLC wondered what the “Police was upto, after they had invaded and carted away books and materials from headquarters of the NLC in Abuja three nights ago.”
The statement said: “Our attention has been drawn to the reports available to us indicating that truckloads of police personnel have cordoned off the place (where a symposium on education was scheduled to hold) since the early hours of this morning.
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“Given the fact that the CDHR neither invited the police nor lodged a report of a threat, we considered the police deployment an unwarranted intrusion and an attack on the right of CDHR to conduct its lawful businesses peacefully.
“Accordingly, we urged the police to pull out of the precincts of CDHR immediately and unconditionally.
“We are alarmed by a growing trend by the police to abridge the fundamental rights of citizens and organisations.
“From alleged senseless killing of protesting citizens during the protests against hunger and bad governance, the police raided and carted away valuables from the headquarters of the Nigeria Labour Congress on Wednesday night.
“That three days later they are at the premises of another civil society organisation is suggestive of a calculated dark agenda.
“We would want to remind the police and those on whose orders they are acting that they cannot cow Nigerians into submission their powers do not extend to abridging the rights of the citizenry.
“We would also want to remind them that we are in a democracy and not a police state.
We would similarly want to caution against starting an agenda that will be undemocratic.
Let them pull out now.”