On Wednesday, the Nigeria Labour Congress leadership, led by Joe Ajaero, invaded the Labour Party’s secretariat. The Labour Party condemned this act.

With his call for students, market women and leaders, thugs and other miscreants to invade the 36 state Labour Party offices, which can lead to a breakdown of law and order, Abayomi Arabambi, the National Publicity Secretary of the Labour Party, called for Ajaero’s arrest for “treason” for allegedly planning a political insurrection against the Federal Government through conduct likely to cause a breach of peace.

The NLC gave its members orders on Tuesday to organize laborers and occupy LP secretariats across the nation in opposition to the party’s national convention, which is scheduled for March 27.

The circular, which was jointly signed by Titus Amba, the Chairman of the NLC Political Commission, and Chris Uyot, the Secretary, also called for Julius Abure, the National Chairman of the Labour Party, to resign immediately due to what was described as “financial rascality and contempt of the union president, Joe Ajaero.”

As anticipated, a large number of demonstrators from the NLC pushed their way into the LP national offices in Abuja on Wednesday, screaming patriotic songs and demanding the head of the party leadership.

Security personnel stationed nearby to keep the situation orderly, however, kept them from entering the party headquarters.

However, LP National Publicity Secretary Arabambi demanded Ajaero’s arrest during a press conference on Wednesday in Abeokuta, Ogun State.

He claimed that the NLC’s demand for protesting, together with the ensuing invasion and destruction of the Labour Party national office, was unlawful, out of step with modern democracy, and outdated.

He said, “We are now fully prepared to shed our blood in defence of our party leadership, as all unconventional or illegal means to hijack our party leadership, against the rule of law shall be met with force and this is not a threat.

“We shall defend our party leadership from being taken over by the NLC political terrorists; we are prepared to dislodge the NLC miscreants from the party national secretariat as nobody has the monopoly of violence.

“For anybody to illegally declare himself either as chairman, secretary or anything, we urge all workers anywhere in the country, to arrest them and bring them to us.

“Joe Ajaero has a penchant for civil disobedience, arrogation of rights and privileges of other citizens to himself because, when a matter is pending before a court, and in this case, the Supreme Court, all parties are to maintain the status quo as decided by the Court of Appeal.

“Our belief is that if there are any scores to settle, the NLC should have gone to court and allowed due process to take its course rather than coercing political parties to dance to their tunes as if they were dealing with the corporate organisation.

“NLC is a movement which by every standard should remain apolitical. There are thousands and one issues that affect Nigerian workers today, which the NLC has failed woefully to fight for.

“The set of NLC leadership as we have today is a failure who put an elephant on the head and scratched for rats on the grounds.”