Lagos

The Nigeria Union of Railway Men (NUR) has accused Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, the Governor of Kaduna State of sponsoring thugs to physically assault officials of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) who on Monday embarked on five days warning strike over the sack of over 4,000 workers from the civil service.

NUR has also called on the Nigeria Governors’ Forum leadership and Nigerians in general to call the governor to order, describing his action as “self-destructive.”

The union described the action of the governor on Tuesday as a dangerous precedent and wondered why the government condescended so low to resort to physical attack on officials of organised labour.

A statement jointly signed by Comrades Innocent Luka Ajiji and Segun Esan, the President General and Secretary General, NUR, respectively, alleged that el-Rufai’s thugs disrupted the peaceful protest of the organised labour.

The statement emphasised that the thugs on Tuesday in Kaduna, attacked viciously with missiles, matchers, knives and other dangerous weapons unprovoked labour leaders.

The statement regretted that rather for el-Rufai to seek peaceful and constructive means to resolve these issues with the leadership of the labour, he resorted to wielding hooliganism and banditry to repel a just and legitimate protest gathering of the congress.

The statement added: “This 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 and this 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 mobilise 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.”(Daily Independent)