Heavily armed security personnel stormed and raided the headquarters of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) in Abuja.
According to the union, the operatives stormed the Labour House, as its headquarters is called, around 8:30 pm on Wednesday, August 7, 2024.
The NLC’s statement signed by the head of Media and Public Relations, Benson Upah said; “They broke in and ransacked the bookshop on the 2nd floor carting away hundreds of books and other publications.
“The invading troop claimed that they were looking for seditious materials used for the #EndBadGoveranance Protests.”
The NLC is not immediately able to ascertain all the things taken away from its offices.
The raid, which was carried out six days after the #EndBadGovernance protests started, has been blasted by the union. The NLC also demanded the immediate withdrawal of the security operatives from its headquarters.
“The Nigeria Labour Congress condemns in its entirety this new low in security operations in Nigeria. The armed security operatives showed no legal document permitting them to invade the premises of the Nigeria Labour Congress in the ungodly hours of the night,” the NLC said.
“Even in the dark days of military rule, NLC secretariats were never invaded and ransacked by security agents. Today is indeed a very sad day for our democracy.”
Recall that hundreds of Nigerians had on Thursday, August 1 hit the streets in some states and the Federal Capital Territory to protest against rising cost of living in the country.
However, the protest took a different dimension when some persons started calling for regime change.
Russian flag was flown in different parts of the country, forcing President Bola Tinubu to summon heads of security agencies to Aso Rock, where he ordered them to crackdown on those threatening democracy in Nigeria.
After the directive, the DSS and other security agencies conducted a series of raids and arrested dozens of persons.
No fewer than seven Polish have were arrested in connection with the use of foreign flags in the protest in Kano.
The suspects have been transferred to Abuja for further interrogation, according to source.
The suspects were said to be students in one of the tertiary institutions in Kano.
The Spokesperson of the Directorate of State Service, Peter Afunanya made the disclosure on Wednesday while responding to the Polish Ambassador to Nigeria on the whereabouts of the suspects during the briefing of the Diplomatic Corps by Nigeria’s Minister, Yusuf Tuggar on the ongoing nationwide protest.
Afunanya said they were found during the protest displaying foreign flags in Kano.
He noted that they were picked as a result of security enforcement because of where they were and not targeted at the Polish.
He said: “For the persons we have picked up from Kano because of where they were found during the protest and display of foreign flag in Kano that was two days ago and as a responsible security organisation we owe it an obligation to do some verification and ascertain basic reasons and circumstances for some cases.”
He added: “They were picked as a result of security enforcement because of where they were when the incident happened. It is not a targeted operation on behalf of my Director General and DSS and Nigeria.
“As the foremost domestic security security organisation, we believe we have to work in sync with all of you who are men and county of goodwill and our operations must be governed by democratic principles and protocol that emphasises freedom and human rights and of course intelligence and security governance we obey all of this whether we are dealing with Nigerians or foreigners.
“But we have a plea, in the cause of the discharged of our duty we will also see that some of Nigerians definitely would want to use foreign lands as a lunch pad’s to attack domestic peace and stability, we plead that you do not offer your country to some person who may be deviance or have terrorist inclination in today’s global pursuit if anything happened in a country it’s affect the others. Nigeria is a country with a large population and I believe that the support other countries will give will help us.”