Barely a day after police authorities released Joe Ajaero, the President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Imo State Governor, Hope Uzodimma, has accused him of mixing politics with unionism.
On Wednesday, Ajaero was picked up from the Imo council secretariat of the NLC in Owerri by heavily armed police officers. Angered by the development, the organised labour accused police authorities of brutalising, and arresting Ajaero. However, the Imo State Police Command denied arresting the NLC President, saying he was placed in protective custody over safety issues.
Commenting on the issue at the State House in Abuja, Uzodimma said Ajaero, an indigene of Imo State, is involved in local politics. He denied the allegation of orchestrating an attack on Ajaero, saying it took his intervention before the NLC leaders in his state who were suspended and replaced with the caretaker committee were reinstated.
“There is an attempt to mix up partisan politics or an attempt to blackmail my government, but I can tell you that my people are already aware,” the governor said after receiving the flag of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) as the governorship candidate of the party for the November 11 election from President Bola Ahmed Tinubu at the Presidential Villa,” he said Thursday.
“That was why the NLC Imo State chapter addressed a World Press Conference that what their National Leadership is doing is not correct and that they are not going to do any strike or protest. And in the process, they decided to dissolve them to put in a caretaker.
“Of course, I’m the chief security officer and I have a responsibility to intervene. What has happened in this ugly coincidence is that the national president of the Nigeria Labour Congress is from Imo State and has not been able to demarcate the difference between being a national leader of an organisation and then an interested party in local politics.”
