Ebonyi NLC chair hospitalised after clash with police

The Chairman of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Ebonyi State Chapter, Comrade Ikechukwu Nwafor, has been hospitalized at the emergency ward of the Federal Teaching Hospital Abakaliki (FETHA).

His admission into hospital followed an encounter he had with the Nigeria Police Force on Thursday .

Mr Nwafor slumped after he was released by the police yesterday and was immediately rushed to the hospital where he was still receiving treatment at press time.

The NLC chairman alongside other labour leaders in the state, was tear-gassed, thoroughly beaten, thrown into a Toyoata Hilux van belonging to the police and taken to Ebonyi State Police headquarters where he was detained by Operatives of the Command.

The police were said to have intercepted  the NLC members at Pastoral Centre along old Abakaliki-Enugu Expressway and ordered them to move back to their office but they insisted on continuing the peaceful protest; a situation that angered the police.

Nwafor was seen rolling on the ground while the police officers made up of members of the Anti-robbery Squad were hitting him hard just as other NLC members who were in the train had their share of the brutality.

Speaking on his hospital bed, Nwafor decried the action of the police, saying that he and his colleagues were treated  like common criminals.

He said they were indiscriminately attacked by the police who also seized their bus and phones.

He said: “Our greatest surprise was that this team was led by an Assistant  Commissioner of Police in charge of Operations, and he was commanding his men to deal with me.

“Even when I was on the ground, he was matching on me and ordered about five of them to lift me and throw me into a Hilux van.”

He alleged that the state Commissioner of Police, Peace Ibekwe Abdallah, confirmed through her responses when he was taken to her office that she was the one who ordered the attack on him and his colleagues.

He also alleged that the CP said the union undermined her office for embarking on the protest without getting her approval, an  allegation he denied, saying he notified her through writing and the CP attested that she received it.

Nwafor also claimed that the men of Department of State Security Services (DSS) sent to provide security for them were also attacked by the police.

He said: “We even gave the police the letter before the DSS and the DSS sent their men. They were on the crew with their vehicle, following us and guiding what we were doing.

“But to our greatest surprise, the police did not consider this. One of the DSS men was also attacked by the police while his gun and phones were forcibly collected from him.

“And before the CP, they checked his phone to make sure he did not video anything that happened.”

He said he had notified the national leadership of the NLC who promised to follow up the matter.

But the Commissioner of Police denied that the workers were attacked.

Describing the protest as an unlawful assembly which could lead to breakdown of law and order, Ibekwe maintained that her men used minimal force to disperse the crowd, adding that the protesters did not inform the Police before embarking on the protest.