By BENJAMIN ALADE

The Nigeria Union of Railway Workers (NUR) has expressed its dismay and disappointment in Governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir El’Rufai for condescending that abysmally low to sponsor his thugs and bandits to attack the peaceful protest of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) against incessant sack and casualisation of the workers in Kaduna State civil and public services.

Still in dismay, the NUR recalled how “El’Rufai’s army of thugs accosted the peaceful procession of the Nigerian workers Tuesday morning in Kaduna and attacked viciously with missiles, matchets, knives and other dangerous weapons unprovoked.”

In a statement jointly signed by its President and Secretary-General, Innocent Luka Ajiji and Segun Esan, NUR regretted that, “rather for the governor to seek peaceful and constructive means to resolve these issues with the leadership of the labour, he has resorted to wielding hooliganism and banditry to repel a just and legitimate protest gathering of the Congress.

The railway workers said, “the singular act on the part of this diminutive and serpentine Nasir El’Rufai has made him and all he represents a phenomenon to be repudiated with attendant passion.”

This, according to them has also left the NUR, in total solidarity to the NLC and Kaduna State workers, with no option than to warn that if any member of the Labour Congress is reported to have suffered any injury, fatality, or taken up in another attack again as the five-day warning mass industrial action against his unpopular government continues into the third day, “Nigeria Union of Railway Workers will not hesitate to mobilize its members to withdraw trains services and shutdown the entire Nigerian Railway system in response to his repulsive and tactless approach to the rights and welfare of Kaduna State workers.”

The union called on the governors’ forum leadership and all good and well-meaning Nigerians to pull Nasir El’Rufai back to his senses before he relapses further into a self-destructive level of lunacy with consequences to be felt nationwide.

NUR also reaffirmed its unreserved solidarity and support to the informed and superior leadership of the Congress as it presses on in its lawful and legitimate duty of compelling Mallam Nasir El’Rufai “to reverse all his anti-people and neoliberal policies that have made life and living so difficult for the working people of Kaduna State and their families.” (The Guardian)

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