Nenadi Usman Urges Police to Probe Attack on Labour Party Headquarters

Onyebuchi Ezigbo in Abuja

The National Chairman of the Labour Party (LP), Senator Nenadi Usman, has asked the police to investigate Tuesday’s attack on the headquarters of the party in Abuja.

She accused loyalists of the ousted chairman, Mr. Julius Abure of unlawfully gaining entry into the party office to cart away documents.

THISDAY learnt that hoodlums stormed the party premises at 8p.m. Wednesday night and forcefully broke into several offices, carting away documents and other valuables.

The attackers also pulled down the billboard with the picture of Usman and the National Secretary of the party during the attack.

As a fallout of the night attack, the Nigerian Police has deployed its men and officers to take charge of security at the party premises.

Addressing journalists shortly after she led party leaders and a delegation of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) on assessment tour of the damaged facilities at the party premises on Thursday, Usman said the attackers broke the doors to gain entry into the offices.

She described the attack as terrible and a criminal act.

She said the idea of wanting to destroy an office when leaving it is very bad and unbecoming of a leader.

“I think every institution must be respected, and there must be institutional memory. When you walk in an office, a ministry, a political party, office, whatever, every document that belongs to that office belongs to the office.

“When is your time to go? You go and you leave the document, so that those who come from you know from behind, know what has happened, and they will build on it.

“But for us to say that whenever you are leaving a ministry or you are leaving a political party office, you must still come in the night, steal all the documents and run away, you see, there is something terribly wrong about it.

The National Chairman said that the matter has been reported to security agencies and that she expects that appropriate measures will be taken to bring the perpetrators to justice.

“I’m calling on security agencies to take measures on it. We have reported. And some of them, you can see, they are out there. So we have reported to them.

“You know, people should not think Nigeria is a lawless nation where you can do anything anyhow and get away with it,” she said.

Speaking on the alleged role of a personnel of the Department of State Services attached to Abure in the attack on the party Headquarters, Nenadi Usman said it was least expected for a security personnel to participate in such an illegal act.

“I’m sure the DG, DSS and his entire team, when they hear this, they will be heartbroken, but I’m very, very sure they will not let it go,” she said.

Regarding the appeal against the Federal High Court judgement by the ousted Abure-led executive, Usman said her team is not worried about that.

“We learnt that there has been an Appeal but we’ve not been served anything yet. But when we are served, we’ll take it off. In fact, we are not, we are not shaking about that,” she said.

According to Usman, the party will move forward with nationwide membership mobilisation and registration.

She also said that the leadership will leave the door open for all that are interested, including those that have worked with Abure to join in the new drive to reposition the affairs of the party.

Earlier while giving an account of the incident, a security man at party Headquarters, Aminu Salisu said some men led by Abure came to the place by 8p.m. and broke into the offices of national chairman and Secretary carting away documents.

Salisu narrated how he was beaten up by the men who accompanied Abure including his security Detail and forced  him to produce the keys with him.

Also addressing journalists, the Acting General Secretary of NLC, Comrade Benson Upah, condemned the destruction of facilities

“A thief in the night is a thief in daytime. It’s shameful and it is contemptuous of the decisions of the court in this manner. So we have two issues here, issues of contempt, issues, issues bothering on crime,” he said

On what will be the role of organized Labour in the affairs of the Labour Party going forward, Upah said that NLC will be a stabilising force.