Ngige threatens to take action against NLC after they block his road with petrol tankers

LABOUR minister Dr Chris Ngige has promised to make the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) pay for waking him up at 5am in the morning when it parked two tankers in front of his residence as part of a protest in an ongoing industrial dispute.

At the moment, the NLC and Dr Ngige are involved in a bitter dispute over the constitution of the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF) board and there are still some unresolved issues over the implementation of the national minimum wage. To drive him its displeasure with the minister, the NLC, led by its president Comrade Ayuba Wabba, picketed Dr Ngige's private residence in Asokoro, Abuja.

In a show of strength, the protesters went with two tankers and allegedly blocked the entrance into the minister’s residence. snowballing into fracas with suspected thugs. Dr Ngige has vowed that he will drag the NLC to court for arson against him and his family.

Dr Ngige said: "I was woken up around 5am by my wife who reported to me that our security guards were having problems with some strange fellows at the gate house and that some people were also on the walls of the house who arrived there by 4.30am. When the security people accosted them, they discovered that it was the president of the Nigeria Labour Congress himself that came physically with two tankers, one laden with petroleum, the second half empty.

"One was put at the gate of my house and the second at the gate of my neighbour’s house. I looked from upstairs and I saw that the tankers were actually blocking the entrance to my house, so I came down and asked for the chief detail who told me the whole story.

"It emerged that they even had a scuffle with the president of the NLC when they were struggling for the keys of the tankers. So I went back and made calls to the Federal Capital Territory commissioner of police, the director of the State Security Service and the Federal Road Safety Commission to see if they could move the vehicles."

He added that picketing does not mean that the NLC can go to people’s private residences because they do know who occupies there. He added that in his home, his wife, children and the children of my domestic staff and security personnel were trapped, while his neighbour, his wife and children couldn’t go out too.

Dr Ngige added: "It is obstruction and it is against the law of the country. Then, putting a tanker with petrol is arson, as the place could have caught fire and the entire street could have been on fire. That is not trade unionism as trade unionism means you dialogue, you discuss, you talk.

I was surprised to read about thugs and people hospitalised, people beaten. I am very distraught, my family is traumatised, the people in my house are traumatised, my domestic staff and their families are traumatised and even my neighbour and his wife couldn’t do their business for the day."