The leadership of the Nigeria Labour Congress has abandoned its headquarters located in the Central Area of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja for an undisclosed guest house.
Sources at the Labour House told our correspondent in Abuja that the decision of the NLC leadership to abandon the Labour House is in response to a threat letter from the dreaded Boko Haram terror sect to attack the Labour establishment if the National President of the NLC, Comrade Abdulwaheed Omar, does not resign from his position.
The threat followed the decision of the leadership of the NLC to agree to a pump price of N97 for petrol instead of the N65 it wanted it reverted to after an initial increase to N141.
Sources further said that the NLC is already proposing a complete relocation to a new site, thus using a guest house as a temporary hibernation.
Although our source would not mention the name of the guest house being used by the NLC executives, he said that it is located not too far away from the present office.
The source said: “Since the receipt of that threat letter from the Boko Haram, we have stopped reporting to our present national headquarters.
“For now, we use a guest house as a temporary hibernation depending the time that our new office will be ready for use.
“I cannot tell you the location of the new office, neither the name of the guest house that we currently use.”
However, investigations made by our correspondent revealed that the national executive of the NLC move from one guest house to the other to carry out their skeletal activity.
It will be recalled that the NLC received a threat letter from someone claiming to speak for the Boko Haram sect, creating great fear and making its leadership to stay away from the premises of its secretariats nationwide, following the compromise Labour reached with government over the controversial fuel subsidy removal
It will also be recalled that Omar had written to security agencies, informing them about the development to forestall any threat to security within and around the premises of its offices.
A letter, purportedly written by the sect and sent to NLC’s e-mail address, alleged that the umbrella union of Nigerian workers and the Trade Union Congress did not carry the people’s wish when they called off the strike following a reduction of petrol price from N141 to N97.
A copy of the letter, as posted on the social network, Facebook, wall of Comrade Denja Yaqub, a senior official of the NLC, reads:
“WARNING: I said it recently: the so-called robbers, Labour union and its wife the TUC, are bastards, traitors that would disappoint Nigerians. How could they submit to the pressure? Who sent them? It is not on fuel subsidy alone. I am talking about d highest corruption in the land. What was a stay at home protest for that did not yield any result? The battle line is drawn. Badluck wants war; he believes in his Ijaw militants.
“The man does not understand what Nigerians want. On N65 (per litre) I stand. He’s the most useless President Nigeria ever had. His PhD is questionable.
“I’m using this opportunity to tell Abdulwahed Omar (NLC National President) to resign with immediate effect. NLC and TUC: be prepared for fire at your head offices and offices nationwide soonest (friday 2012).”
Reacting to the threat, Omar said: “We can’t actually tell why such threat could be directed at the Labour, but from the letter the sect sent, it claimed that it was because we could not insist on N65 per liter from the government.
“We had written to the State Security Service (SSS), the police and other security personnel about the situation to ensure enough security at our offices nationwide.”