Ajaero: Police tied my hands, handed me over to 7 thugs to brutalise

Joseph Irikefe

President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Comrade Joe Ajaero on Friday said that he was arrested in Owerri by the Police and was handed over to waiting thugs that got him thoroughly beaten. He said that the thugs who were about seven in number dragged him on the floor like a common criminal.

Briefing journalists in Abuja, the NLC president said the NLC wrote to all the security agencies before they went to the state for the protest on November I.

According to him, workers who arrived at the venue of the protest on that day around 7 am were beaten up by thugs with their phones seized.

Ajaero said he got there around 9 am after he got the report of an assault on workers, adding that the police arrested him and handed him over to thugs.

He said: “I can’t explain the beating I received. They tied my hands and dragged me on the floor like a common criminal.”

The NLC President denied the allegation by the Imo State government that he is a card carrying member of the Labour Party.

“I am not a card-carrying member of any political party as alleged,” he said.

General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, ordered thorough investigations into the circumstances surrounding the attack and assault on Ajaero.

In a statement issued on Friday, the Force Public Relations Officer, ACP Olumuyiwa Adejobi, had said that the IGP directed the Deputy Inspector General (DIG) in charge of the Force Criminal Investigation Department (FCID) to take over the matter “with the primary objective of ascertaining the true facts surrounding the incident and to address any ambiguities that may exist as the Police has been inundated with different versions of the incident making investigations imperative to clear the conflicting accounts.”