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The police in Imo State, South-east Nigeria, have spoken on the reported arrest of the Nationwide President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Joe Ajaero in Owerri, the state capital.
Background
The nationwide management of the NLC had alleged that police operatives arrested Mr Ajaero on the state capital on Wednesday.
“President of the Nigeria Labour Congress, Comrade Joe Ajaero was picked up a couple of minutes in the past from NLC state council secretariat by closely armed policemen in Owerri and brought to an unknown vacation spot,” Benson Upah, the NLC spokesperson, had stated.
The event got here on the day put aside by the NLC nationwide management to carry a protest in Imo State over an alleged violation and abuse of rights and privileges of staff by the Imo State Authorities.
Police communicate
Reacting in a press release issued on Wednesday afternoon which was forwarded to PREMIUM TIMES, the police spokesperson in Imo State, Henry Okoye, stated, opposite to the reviews, the police didn’t arrest the NLC president.
Mr Okoye, an assistant superintendent of police, stated police solely took the NLC president “into protecting custody” in response to a mob assault in opposition to him.
The police spokesperson narrated that Mr Ajaero visited the state as a part of the preparations of the NLC to mobilise staff for his or her scheduled protest within the state on Wednesday.
He stated, in the midst of their planning for the protest, ideas to lock down some important services, notably an airport, reportedly arose inside them, however some staff and different people resisted the plot.
Mr Okoye stated the disagreement later degenerated right into a scuffle and heated argument which resulted in a mob assault in opposition to the NLC president.
“Upon receiving this report, the Imo Police Command swiftly deployed police operatives to the scene the place the officer in cost exercised his operational discretion by taking the NLC president into protecting custody on the State Command Headquarters to make sure the safety of his life and that he was not lynched within the scuffle that adopted,” he stated.
“The commissioner of police (in Imo) thereafter directed that he (Ajaero) ought to be taken to the Police Medical Companies, Owerri, the place he can be accorded medical consideration because of the assault. He has due to this fact been accorded satisfactory safety cowl to proceed on his different respectable engagements for the day,” Mr Okoye acknowledged.
Courtroom order
Mr Okoye, nevertheless, reminded the NLC management that there was an present courtroom injunction from the Nationwide Industrial Courtroom in Owerri barring them from holding the deliberate protest in Owerri.
The police spokesperson stated the Commissioner of Police in Imo State, Mohammed Barde, has due to this fact urged the NLC to adjust to courtroom injunction in order to keep away from jeopardising the safety preparations in Owerri and different elements of the state.
However he didn’t say if the police would cease the deliberate protest in compliance with the courtroom injunction.
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