By Lanre Adesanya
The peace pact brokered by stakers in Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) to calm frayed nerves, appears not to have any positive effect as the crisis rocking the body lingers on, with the Inspector General of Police, Solomon Erase order of arrest of leaders of the National Union of Banks, Insurance Companies, and Financial Institution Employees (NUBIFIE) on account of alleged document falsification.
According to the National President of NUBIFIE ,comrade (Dr) Danjuma Musa, who spoke with our correspondent on phone,men of the Nigerian Police from Alagbon division stormed the Yaba office of the union on Wednesday, arrested some of their leaders,including the General Secretary, Comrade. Mohammed I Sheikh, comrade Etim E Okon, comrade Abdulrasheed Lukman, comrade Sola Aboderin and whisked away to Alagbon police station.
The National President while narrating their ordeal said that, “, before now we supposed to have held our delegate Conference which would have produced new set of executives, but the Ibo’s gang up to say if we hold it now, there is every possibility that myself as a northerner may return as President, so they decide to tribalise the issue.
“They came up with frivolous petition, filed by one Barr. Nna Okechukwu,an Ibo man who used to be a union member of NUBIFIE in conjunction with his wife,also an Ibo woman,who happened to be an Asst. Commissioner of Police, she has been using her office to arrest,harass and intimidate our members, therefore destabilising the activities of the union.
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“They came up with a petition last year, alleging fraud by our union and we went to court to challenge them to prove the allegations, we filed a counter affidavit,they said that the counter affidavit we filed,somebody impersonated the President, as i speak, the matter is still in court, so they’ve secured a warrant of arrest since March 6 but waited till Wednesday March 23rd to effect the arrest clamping all of us Including myself as the president in detention,a ploy to ward us off our secretariat ,knowing fully well that Friday and Monday are public holiday, so that they can come and take over the office, its purely an evil agenda ,but I tactically escaped .
A fresh angle we got is that the whole thing is not unconnected with the current crisis in NLC because NUBIFIE is a staunch supporter of Comr . Joe Ajaero, so they said they came to arrest us on the order of Inspector General of Police,I don’t know when Police became union members of NUBIFIE to be meddling in union matters,just because somebody’s wife is an Asst. Commissioner of Police,as I speak my people are still in police custody at Alagbon since Wednesday,” the President affirmed.
On getting to Alagbon police station on Friday to dig into the matter,newsmen were denied access by police men on duty, saying,” today is a public holiday nobody will talk to press today”.