By Ken Afor
The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has confirmed the arrest of its President, Joe Ajaero in Owerri, the Imo State Capital, on Wednesday.
According to reports, Comrade Ajaero was picked up by some armed men at the state secretariat of the congress to an unknown location.
The Head of Information, NLC, Benson Upah, who confirmed the arrest to The PUNCH said, “President of the Nigeria Labour Congress, Comrade 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.”
It was gathered that thugs descended on protesters in the state capital vandalising vehicles and inflicting wounds on labour members during their protest.
The police in the state are yet to respond to the alleged arrest.
Wednesday’s protest by the NLC was a demonstration of their grievance over what the labor leader called a “violation of the rights of the Nigerian workers in the state” by the Imo State Government.
It could be recalled that on Sunday, during a press conference, Comrade Ajaero accused Governor Hope Uzodima of being insensitive to the plight of the workers, lamenting that many of them died due to non-payment of their salaries.
He cited Uzodimma’s violations against his employees, including previous agreements, particularly the January 9, 2021 agreement, non-payment of salaries for almost 20 months, wrongly declaring employees as ghost workers and refusing to declare pensioners as workers.
He said about 10,000 pensioners were wrongly classified as ghost workers and have not received their pension for over 22 months, while the Imo State Government classified about 11,000 workers as ghost workers.
The NLC chairman also accused the state government of non-compliance with the national minimum wage, saying Governor Uzodinma refused to use social dialogue and collective bargaining to resolve the issue.
