Armed soldiers were yesterday deployed to complement the police to keep protesters away from government establishments in Makurdi, the Benue State capital.
The soldiers who arrived Makurdi metropolis in trucks from the 72 battalion were stationed mostly along Ahmadu Bello Way leading to the deputy governor’s office, Nigeria Telecom-munication (NITEL) and Nigeria Television Authority (NTA).
Other military personnel were stationed at the state owned Radio Benue station and the Nigeria National Pet-roleum Corporation (NNPC), depot in Apii, which is located at the outskirts of Mak-urdi town.
The latest development came on the heels of efforts by NLC officials and hun-dreds of protesters compr-ising commercial bus drivers and motorcyclists to ensure that no worker reported for work.
The NTA general man-ager, Mrs Grace Shaahu, on Monday escaped being lync-hed by irate youths in the Wurukum section of the town when she personally drove a cameraman to cover the strike.
State secretary of the NLC, Comrade Kwashmande Kwaghmande, told journ-alists that the state chapter would keep the tempo of the ongoing strike.
He said private business operators would be allowed to commence business after 9 a.m. daily but workers will boycott corporate inst-itutions.
Meanwhile, business activities at the Lagos Port Complex (LPC) and the Tin Can Island port as well as the Roll on Roll Off (RORO) port have been paralysed by the three-day old NLC-led natio-nwide strike.
Although the gates to the sea ports were open, there was no business activity whatsoever taking place.
When Daily Trust visited the LPC, only senior officers of the Nigerian Ports Aut-hority (NPA), could be seen at the gates, trying to prevent wharf rats from entering the port.
While one ship was seen at the berthing facility, there was no dockworker to load the consignments into trailers. No single trailer was loaded.
Apapa local government which houses the three sea ports was like a ghost town as the streets were virtually empty.
It was gathered that under the contract of affreightment, the receiver, impo-rters or freight forwarders are exempted from any liability during the period of strike. This falls under the principle of force ma-jeure (unexp-ected circumstances), in view of which the NPA would be losing huge sums of money daily to the strike in form of waivers on rent and demurrage.
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