Anambra Workers Protest against Killing of Colleagues in Nasarawa

 Anambra State Chapter of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), today, joined their colleagues in a nation-wide protest and national mourning in honour of their two colleagues in Nasarawa State who were recently killed by the Nigerian Police.

Comrade Aliyu Abdullahi Umbugadu of the Nasarawa  State Ministry of Education and Rabiu Mohammed Hamza of the Nigeria Newsday, Lafia were killed at the gate of the Nasarawa State Government House on July 29 by trigger happy police officers attached to government House.

The deceased and other workers who sustained various degrees of injuries were protesting the suspected plan of Governor Tanko Al-Makura led State government to unlawfully slash down their salaries before they met their untimely death.

The workers from Anambra State, who clad in black and black in yesterday’s protest in Anambra, marched from the National Union of Local Government Employees office to Aroma Junction through Alex Ekwueme square, Awka, and singing solidarity songs.

Addressing workers at Aroma junction, the State Chairman of NLC, Comrade Jerry Nnubia, who read the address of their National President, Comrade Ayiba Wuba condemned the gruesome killing and calls for full justice for the injured and the dead by way of unbiased investigation into the matter.

Comrade Wabba also called on the  Nasarawa state government to take full responsibility for the education and training of the children of the dead and full medical bills of the injured.

“The government of  Nasarawa state  must commence immediately the full payment of salaries and pensions as at when due and governments should desist from unleashing the police or any other security agency on peaceful protesting workers or citizens” he said.

He also noted that Nigerian workers will no longer tolerate the excesses of  some state governors, wondering why workers should always be at the receiving end during any economic doom in the country.

“It is only during the time of doom that government push it to workers but nobody remembers us during economic boom. Some governors collected bail-out fund and embezzled it instead of using it to settle arrears of salaries of workers and when we ask question, they will send police to kill us.

“They always thought of slashing the salaries of workers but none of them has slashed the salaries of their aides or their estacodes.  In Kogi State, they refused to pay  workers for months under the guise of staff audit.

“Others in Imo, against all known laws and rules governing public service where the state government  have decreed new work days in a week and totally abolish leave and in  the private sector, some companies are denying workers the right to unionism. All these are illegalities” he said.