THE whereabouts of the President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, who was arrested yesterday morning by men of the State Security Service (SSS) at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, remain unknown. Whereas the SSS claimed Oshiomhole had been released, the NLC secretariat said the Congress President had not been seen.
The Trade Union Congress (TUC), yesterday said if Oshiomhole was not released by today, a non-violent strike could not be guaranteed. The President of PENGASSAN, Mr. Brown Ogbeifun, who briefed the press in his capacity as the deputy-president general of the TUC, condemned the arrest of Oshiomhole in strong terms.
Oshiomhole had a taste of brutality yesterday as he was allegedly dragged on the tarmac of the Abuja Airport in the process of being arrested by about 15 armed men of the SSS. In the process, Oshiomhole’s left arm was badly bruised.
But the NLC secretariat insisted that the strike scheduled to begin tomorrow must go on. The Labour/ Civil Society Coalition and the TUC also confirmed that the strike would begin as scheduled.
The coalition in a statement by Dr. Beko Ransome- Kuti said “ the abduction of Mr. Oshiomhole, conducting a phoney seminar and intimidating activists and coalition leaders show the increasing impotence of the Obasanjo government and expose the fact that it has no solution to the economic crisis”. Men of the SSS also quizzed Mr. Femi Aborishade of the National Conscience Party (NCP) over the planned strike. Aborishade spent Friday night with the SSS men in Abuja but was released about 1.30 p.m. yesterday. Oshiomhole who spoke on telephone shortly before his mobile phone was seized said, “My arrest is immaterial . The bottom line is price reversal. Nigerians must go ahead with the strike and prove that they are unsatisfied with the policies of this administration”.
*Ogbeh, Ogbulafor cited as witnesses to arrest
An eye witness who was with Oshiomhole at the airport narrated how the arrest was effected. Said he: “We were going to board DASAB airline on our way to Benin to prepare for the strike when about 15 men of the State Security Service swooped on us. At first, we tried to resist them but when we saw that they were armed and they were dragging Oshiomhole on the floor injuring him in the process, we allowed them to effect the arrest.
As this was going on, the chairman of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Audu Ogbeh and the party secretary, Chief Vincent Ogbulafor, were watching the film-like action of the SSS men. They later took him (Oshiomhole) away in a Peugeot 405 station wagon car”. The PDP leaders were on their way to Asaba, Delta State, for the burial of Governor Ibori’s mother. Since then, NLC officials said they had not seen Oshiomhole.
In its description of the conditions under which the NLC president was arrested, the Congress secretariat in a statement by its acting General Secretary, Comrade Salihu Lukman, stated, “ Mr. Oshiomhole was abducted by a team of operatives of the SSS numbering over 15 who overpowered him, wrestled him to the ground and bundled him into a standby Peugeot 405 station wagon, which bore no licence plates.
“In the process, his jacket was torn and he sustained bruises caused by the rough-handling and the impact of the several falls he sustained before being half-dragged, half-carried into the vehicle. “Workers and passengers who were attracted by the noise of the scuffle were physically prevented from accessing the tarmac area by security men who had their weapons drawn”, the release said.
Lukman said that the whereabouts of the NLC president remained unknown as, according to him, Oshiomhole’s captors seized his mobile phone and held him incommunicado.
The NLC condemned the arrest and the violence with which it was carried out by the government agents, describing it as another indication of the intolerance of the President Olusegun Obasanjo administration.
“However, before his phone was seized, he had spoken to the National Secretariat of the NLC and was in very high spirits, urging full encouragement towards an effective prosecution of the stay-at-home strike/protest”, the statement added.It said that the arrest of Mr. Oshiomhole was a rude reminder and return to the dark days of dictatorship, witnessed under military regimes and also portend a grave danger to the nation’s democracy for which labour and ordinary Nigerians fought so hard to enthrone.
Labour therefore called for the unconditional release of Oshiomhole and expressed its determination to go ahead with tomorrow’s nationwide sit-at-home strike to force the federal government to revert fuel prices to their former levels.
Arrested with Oshiomhole were three others who accompanied him to the airport- Mr. Philip Shuaib, former National Association of Nigerian Students President; Mr. Olaitan Oyerinde, Oshiomhole’s Special Assistant; and Mr. Obadiah Bapven.
They were briefly detained at the Airport office of the SSS questioned and released, but that was after Shuaib and Bapven “were savagely beaten by the SSS operatives”, according to the NLC leadership.
*We didn’t arrest Oshiomhole — SSS
Disputing the claim of the NLC, SSS stated in Abuja yesterday that Oshiomole was not arrested by its operatives but had an encounter with its field operatives attached to the local terminal of the Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport, Abuja, who took him to SSS sub-office Asokoro, following some misunderstanding which was later resolved.
The SSS, in a statement, disclosed that the Director-General of the SSS, Col Kayode Are, personally went to the sub-office on learning of the incident and resolved the matter leading to the release of the NLC president. The statement read: “The SSS has received inquiries on the purported arrest of Mr. Adams Oshiomole, the NLC president.
It is not true that NLC president was arrested.”
“This morning at 09.15 hours, Mr. Adams Oshiomhole had some misunderstanding with field operatives at the local terminal of the Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport, Abuja, as a result of which he was taken to the sub-office of the service in Asokoro.” “On learning of the incident, the DG SSS personally went to the sub-office at about 1000 hours and resolved the matter. Thereafter, the NLC president left the premises at 1005 hours.”
*Go ahead with strike, Oshiomhole orders from detention camp
From his place of alleged detention, Oshiomhole was said to have given orders yesterday that the organized labour and civil society groups should go ahead with tomorrow’s strike.
Sunday Vanguard learnt that the NLC president spoke to some labour and civil society groups from the said detention camp, asking them not to be cowed.
National co-ordinator and chairman of the Human Rights Defenders Organisation of Nigeria, Mr. C.D.S. Omon - Irabor, told Sunday Vanguard that he spoke with Oshiomhole and he had given directives that the strike should go on.
“The situation is tense, we are meeting. Nigerians cannot be cowed, the strike will go on. I know that security agents are hunting us but this is our country, we must salvage it, it is not for Obasanjo alone”, he said.
Omon -Irabor whose organization led market women and other groups in a peaceful protest in Effurun and Warri, last week, said Obasanjo should listen to the voices of his fellow country men who were tired of paying so much for petrol which they produce and also give his government a human face.
*Aborishade narrates experience
Mr. Femi Aborishade who is secretary -general of NCP one of the civil society organizations in the NLC/ Labour Coalition for tomorrow strike, while narrating his experience inthe hands of the SSS, said: “I merely reiterated our decision that we cannot buy President Obasanjo’s argument that Nigerians should continue to pay more for petrol at home when Nigeria was making so much from the international market”.
Aborishade said he told the SSS men that the explanation of Mr. Funso Kupolokun , group managing director of the NNPC, that the contract of Chrome, the company that was awarded the contract for turn-around maintenance of the Port Harcourt refinery had been terminated was not sufficient. We need to probe the contract and identify those behind it”.
The TUC said “ the arrest is a reflection of the intolerance of the federal government and its growing autocratic tendencies . Thus the Nigerian project we all dream off is gradually sliding to a totalitarian state, where any voice of opposition must be crushed”.
Comrade Brown Ogbeifun who spoke for the TUC said, “ The TUC condemns the arrest and demand his immediate release. Rather than frighten labour and progressive citizens, it will surely harden our resolve to obtain from Government our legitimate rights and adequate attention to the plight of Nigerians based on good governance and dividend of democracy”.
The die is cast - Gani, CNPP
Lagos lawyer, Chief Gani Fawehinmi and Conference of Nigerian Political Parties yesterday condemned the SSS action against the NLC President.
Gani, in a press statement, described the arrest as barbaric, illegal and unconstitutional”.
He said the “arrest cannot prevent tomorrow’s strike from going on in a more determined manner”.
“The die is cast. Monday October 11, 2004 is the D-Day when Nigerians will show their revulsion against failed economic policies of the regime which has brought untold hardship through its National Economic Enslavement and Dehumanisation Strategy (NEEDS)”, the lawyer stated.
CNPP, speaking through its national secretary, Maxi Okwu, deplored the arrest of Oshiomhole and demanded his immediate release.
“By the arrest, the government has finally declared total war on the masses. We urge all voices of dissent to be on alert since they are all on the list of crackdown and containment. The mass action slated for October 11, must go on”, the CNPP added.
Ohanaeze chieftain and publisher of Champion Newspapers, Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu, told Sunday Vanguard that there should now be a fresh dialogue between the National Assembly, the Executive and labour to resolve the crisis once and for all
Iwuanyanwu, however, appealed to the NLC to suspend the strike because it would inflict hardship on the people they want to help.
Ijaw leader, Chief Edwin Clark also told Sunday Vanguard: Since the inception of this government, we have been having this fuel crisis, why can they not sit down and settle it once and for all. So as far as some of us are concerned, we do not have the details of the arrest as such for now, you are just informing me but we are in a democracy and labour organizations are every where in the world, in all democratic nations, even in military regimes, there is labour and the federal government should realize that they have to be an opposition, an agitation and demonstrations on some major issues”.
Senator Patrick Osakwe maintained the earlier position of the Senate that Obasanjo should look at the matter more passionately because “that is the wish of those that elected us into office. We made our stand clear in the Senate and I stand by our resolution”.
Member of the House of Representatives, Mr. Halim Agoda said he was just hearing the story of Oshiomhole’s arrest from Sunday Vanguard at Oghara, Delta State where Governor Ibori’s mother was buried yesterday, adding, “I hope that the matter will not metamorphose into what you are saying. I want to believe that it is not true”.
200,000 policemen deployed
About 200,000 policemen are to be deployed to the streets throughout the country to crush any act of violence or looting by hoodlums who may want to take advantage of the strike against fuel price increase.
Police sources in Abuja told Sunday Vanguard that the Leadership of Labour and civil society groups who may try to prevent law abiding citizens from going about their work during the period would also not be spared.
Inspector-general of police, Tafa Balogun, at the weekend, read a riot act to commissioners of police in the 36 states and Abuja directing them to deal decisively with hoodlums who may want to raise a war of violence and take advantage of the proposed strike.
Speaking through the Force public relations officer, Deputy Commissioner of police, Chris Olakpe, the IGP said, “Nigeria Police and other law enforcement agencies have the constitutional mandate to ensure that law and order reign supreme in the country.”
He charged the NLC leadership to adopt peaceful means of attaining their goals and objectives and exploit judicial processes and the rule of law in place of violence and disturbance of public peace.
While urging law abiding Nigerians to go about their lawful businesses without fear of threat or intimidation from any quarters, the IGP warned that the Nigeria police Force shall not allow violence in any form or ramification in any part of Nigeria.
“All state commissioners of police and other formation commanders are therefore directed to ensure that there is no violence or breakdown of law and order in their respective domains.”
“The law is also bound to take its natural cause against miscreants and perpetrators of violence”, he added.
Yesterday in Lagos, markets were busy as traders informed customers that the markets would be closed in compliance with the Labour / Civil Society Coalition directive on the commencement of the strike.
