President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Joe Ajaero has narrated his ordeal in police custody after he was assaulted and arrested in Owerri, Imo State.
He had visited the state to join the union’s state chapter and mobilize Imo workers for a mega protest rally over an alleged abuse of rights and non payment of salaries, but some thugs disrupted the protest.
Ajaero, who was detained at the state police command after violence broke out, said God must have taken extra time to create him due to the beating he received while in custody.
He said the police threatened to prosecute him for protesting, after Imo government ot an interim order from court barring any demonstration in the state.
The NLC president said: “If you say interim order, it elapses with time; if the court issues another one, then it’s a different thing. I told them interim order ends within one week or two; they now kept the letter and told me they can prosecute me.
“I told them it’s the same court that can institute a contempt charge; you just can’t start prosecute me. They beat me; God must have taken extra time to create me because of the kind of beating I received.”
After his release, the brutalized labour leader was rushed to the Federal Medical Centre, FMC, Owerri with his right eye completely shut.
The NLC Head of Information and Publicity, Comrade Benson Upah, described what happened to Ajaero as an act of abduction that degenerated into attempted murder.
He said; “Contact has been made with Congress President, Comrade Joe Ajaero this evening around 15:30 hours at the Police Hospital in Owerri from where he was taken to Federal Medical Centre, Owerri where he is receiving medical attention. Thoroughly brutalized, his right eye at the time of contact was completely shut.”