By Chijioke Agwu, Abakaliki
Ebonyi State Chairman of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Ikechukwu Nwafor, has narrated his predicament in the hands of the officers of the Ebonyi State Police Command, saying it was abuse of his rights and those of his members.
Nwafor, who spoke on Friday from his hospital bed at the emergency ward of the Federal Teaching Hospital Abakaliki after his bitter encounter with Nigeria Police Force on Thursday.
Nwafor had slumped after he was released on Tursday by the police and was immediately rushed to the hospital where he is still receiving treatment as at press time.
The NLC chairman was tear-gassed, thoroughly beaten, thrown into a police Hilux van and taken to the state police headquarters by operatives of the Command where he was detained following a peaceful protest by NLC members in the state.
Nwafor and other Labour leaders were protesting against the increase in electricity tariff and fuel pump price by Federal Government.
The police were said to have intercepted the NLC members at pastoral centre along old Abakaliki-Enugu expressway , manhandled and whisked them to the state command.
At the command, Nwafor was seen rolling on the ground while the police officers made up of Anti-robbery Squad were hitting him hard just as other NLC members who were also attacked by the police.
Speaking on his hospital bed on Friday, Nwafor decried the action of the police, saying they were handled like common criminals, lamenting that they were indiscriminately attacked; their bus and phones seized.
He said, “Our greatest surprise was that this team was led by an Assistant Commissioner of Police Operations and he was commanding his men to deal with me and even when I was on the ground he was matching and hitting me and later ordered about five of them to lift me and throw into a Hilux van”.
He alleged that the state Commissioner of Police, Peace Ibekwe Abdallah, confirmed through her responses when he was taken to her office she was the one who ordered the attack on him and his colleagues.
He alleged that the CP said the union undermined her office by embarking on the protest without getting her approval first, an allegation Nwafor denied, saying he notified her through writing and the CP attested she received it.
Nwafor said that even the men of Department of State Security Services (DSS) sent to provide security for them were also attacked by police.
He said: “We even gave the police the letter before DSS and the DSS sent their men, they were on the crew with their vehicle following us and guiding what we were doing.
“But to our greatest surprise, police did not consider this, one of the DSS men was also attacked by police and his gun and phones collected forcefully from him. And before the CP, they checked his phone to make sure he did not video anything that happened”.
The chairman, however, accused the CP of acting a script which he was yet to understand, recalling how the police had been trailing him prior to the incident.
He said that he had communicated the national leadership of NLC which has promised to follow up the matter.
He said Governor David Umahi had called him over the incident but only said that he was told that him (Comrade Nwafor) was the one who fought the police.
The state police commissioner had denied they were attacked, saying they were dispersed for unlawful gathering, which could cause public unrest.
