Members of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) have started converging at the NLC Secretariat in Abuja ahead of a nationwide protest over the escalating insecurity across the country.
Among those already present at the Secretariat are the NLC President, Joe Ajaero, alongside civil society partners.
Also in attendance are Omoyele Sowore and other members of the Revolution Now Movement.
Security operatives, including personnel from the police, the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, and the Department of State Service (DSS), have been deployed to the area.
Ajaero had earlier reaffirmed that the planned nationwide protest would go ahead as scheduled.
“I am not sure you have gotten any contrary view that it is not holding. So, unless you have gotten a contrary view, then we can take it from there. The protest is to help this country – to call to attention the effect of insecurity,” he said shortly after paying a courtesy visit to the Chairman of the nineteen Northern States Governors’ Forum and Governor of Gombe State, Inuwa Yahaya, in Gombe.
The NLC President lamented the damaging impact of insecurity on Nigeria’s economy, noting that it is discouraging both local and foreign investment. According to him, insecurity “is affecting even investors coming into this country”.
He explained that the protest is intended to compel the government to rise to its responsibility in addressing worsening economic hardship, insecurity, banditry, and other societal challenges.
Highlighting the toll on workers and citizens, Ajaero said, “Many workers are being kidnapped on a daily basis. People are killed. In the case of Kebbi, the person killed was a teacher.
“The children who are kidnapped are the children of workers. So, we need to ask the government to help them fish out the perpetrators of this.”
Calling on Nigerians to contribute to ending the country’s challenges, Ajaero urged a complete reassessment of national values, stressing that banditry and kidnapping for ransom are alien to Nigeria’s cultural identity.
He added, “Unless the government is interested in giving us what is called an insecurity allowance because most of the workers kidnapped borrow money, look for someone to pay for their ransom,” the NLC President said.
“So it’s getting to a dimension that we have to equally add our own. We don’t have a gun, we don’t have matchet to go into the bush to look for the people involved, but this is our only contribution, the only way that we are going to tell Nigerians and the international community that this should stop.
“This is not the culture of Nigerians – culture of banditry and insecurity is not the culture of Nigerians. So, we have to condemn it moving forward, and then with that, you strengthen the hands of those in authority to make sure that this does not continue.”