It is heart-refreshing that the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC and the Trade Union Congress, TUC suspended the nationwide strike to protest the attack on NLC president, Joe Ajaero in Imo State earlier this month.
Tommy Etim, deputy national president of the TUC said the unions suspended the strike based on the trust they have on the National Security Adviser, NSA, Nuhu Ribadu. “We also saw that he wasn’t playing politics with our demands and he was ready and promised to follow up with everything”, he had said.
Before the meeting with labour leaders last Wednesday, the NSA had issued a statement in which he strongly condemned the attack on the NLC president. “The NSA regrets the incident and condemns it in its entirety as it was against the rule of law and principles of freedom of association subscribed to by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and his administration”.
The statement had also spoken of efforts the government was making to get at the root of the matter. These included a directive to relevant authorities to thoroughly investigate the incident and bring the culprits to book, the arrest of some suspects and a promise to make the findings public.
The NSA had also appealed to the unions to call off the strike and allow the dialogue process underway to be exhausted. It did not come as surprise that after a follow-up meeting the NSA had with the leadership of NLC and TUC, the unions subsequently called off the strike, albeit temporarily.
They gave the credit for the suspension to Ribadu. He fully deserves that credit for unambiguously condemning the attack on the NLC president in Imo State and reaffirming the commitment of the President Tinubu-led federal government to the rule of law, freedom of expression and association.
That should be the minimum expectation from a democratic government given the circumstance of the matter. Anything less would have amounted to according free reign to unmitigated acts of impunity and lawlessness.
Ribadu’s position is reassuring given the way the attack on the NLC president was twisted to convey the impression that he deserved the beating he got. What are the issues?
The NLC president was in Imo State to mobilize workers for an industrial action against the state government for practices they considered anti-labour. But as they were mobilizing on the first day of the strike, pandemonium broke out at the state headquarters of the union in Owerri leading to the arrest of the NLC president.
Accounts of how the fracas erupted vary. But initial reports from the union had it that, thugs allegedly acting at the behest of the Imo State government invaded the premises and attacked all those gathered dispossessing them of their personal effects even as the police watched seemingly helpless. In the midst of the confusion, the police was reported to have whisked away Ajaero to an unknown destination.
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Ajaero’s whereabouts remained cloudy until late afternoon that fateful day when he surfaced at the hospital with bruises all over one of his eyes. The state police command was later to issue a statement in which it gave account of what transpired. They admitted that the NLC president was in the state as part of the arrangements to mobilize workers for a mega protest.
In the course of planning, the police claimed disagreement arose as to the modality of carrying out the strike leading to scuffles and heated arguments and an eventual attack on the person of the president by a mob. On receiving the report, the police said its operatives swiftly moved to the scene and took the NLC president into protective custody at the state command.
Having ensured the protection of his life and that he was not lynched, they took him to the hospital for medical attention. Such was the account of the incident by the Imo State police command. But they were also quick to draw attention to a subsisting injunction from the National Industrial Court barring the NLC from holding the protest.
But the account of the incident by the NLC president faulted the claims by the state police command. He shocked many when he disclosed that he was arrested by the police and handed over to thugs led by an aide to the state governor who gave him a beating of his life. Ajaero described how he was blindfolded, beaten, his hands tied, dragged on the floor with a threat to kill and dump his body into a river.
He lacked words to properly describe the kind of beating he received from his captors. By providence, he is alive to give a chilling account of his story. His account is bound to ruffle the sensibilities of all decent minds.
That was the setting in which the NLC and TUC issued ultimatum to the federal government to arrest, reprimand and bring to book all the individuals including the security agencies connected with that odious pass. That was the background of the strike that was just called off courtesy of the intervention by Ribadu.
There is a message served by this. If the intervention by the NSA could get the unions call off an ongoing strike, it could have also been possible to nip the strike at the bud had the authorities come up unequivocally on the potent danger the attack constituted to the rights of labour to peaceful protests.
That failed to happen even as the state commissioner of police under whose watch the unwarranted attack occurred had since been redeployed. The seeming conspiracy of silence on the part of the government conveyed wrong signals precipitating the strike with its toll on the struggling national economy. Matters were not helped by the seeming impression that Ajaero deserved what he got. Partisan politics was also woven into the incident with very predictable effects.
The state police command and Governor Hope Uzodimma were quick to draw attention to a subsisting injunction restraining the NLC from going on with the strike. The purpose was to show the illegality of the strike action. That could as well be even as it stood no justification for the attack and body harm inflicted on the NLC president.
Uzodimma raised an issue that should not be allowed to slip by. He said he intervened to prevent the national leadership of the NLC from dissolving the state chapter since their tenure had not expired.
Hear him: “they decided to dissolve them to put in a caretaker. Of course, I’m the Chief Security Officer and I have a responsibility to intervene. I encourage the national leadership not to dissolve a management team that their tenure has not expired and that was what they did”.
This position is as curious as it is confounding. When did it become the duty of a state governor to dabble into how the NLC runs its internal affairs? One needs to be guided on aspects of the constitution that empowers a governor as the chief security officer to stop organized labour from dissolving a state organ if such need arose.
Before then, we should be told how such dissolution is different from the penchant by the leadership of the political parties to dissolve state chapters and institute caretaker committees? Even then, governors find themselves helpless in such circumstances when the state executive of the party loyal to them is replaced with nominees from competitors. Herein is the absurdity in a state governor intervening to prevent the NLC from dissolving a state chapter and appointing in its place a caretaker committee.
By drawing attention to the injunction of the industrial court, they seek to demonstrate the illegality of the strike action. That may also justify the presence of the police at the scene to ensure there is no breakdown of law and order. It could also warrant the arrest of the organizers of the protest.
But that cannot justify the attack by hoodlums apparently acting at the instance of the state government. That cannot empower the police to brutalize the NLC president or even hand him over to some band of thugs for jungle justice.
If the NLC president was found to have disobeyed a court restraining order, it is left to that court to determine the kind of punishment he deserves. It is neither for the police nor that of some unruly mob to resort to jungle justice. The Imo incident was no doubt, a national embarrassment that a democratic government cannot afford. The interest shown by the NSA is most reassuring. He should ensure that all those responsible for that show of shame are made to account for their acts of indiscretion. Overzealous officials should not be allowed to give the government a bad name. Conducts capable of conveying the notion that ours is a system that accords scant regard to the rule of law must be discouraged.
