The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC), have given their positions on the mass murder and rampaging killing spree being carried out by herdsmen across the Middle Belt and southern parts of the country.
They tasked the President Muhammadu Buhari APC-led Federal Government to rise up to its responsibility over the mass killing and unprovoked attacked by herdsmen on farmers and communities on their land. The two labour centres lamented the mass killings, and charged the Federal Government to urgently apprehend the situation.
“We believe the Federal Government must rise up to its responsibility by directing appropriate security agencies to urgently apprehend the situation.
“No part of the country is of less consequence to our national development and therefore the responsibility of securing all lives and properties in our country is squarely placed as the full responsibility of the Federal Government,” NLC President Comrade Ayuba Wabba said while giving the position of the congress.
According to him, the congress was upset at the rate of serial killings around the country, especially in Benue, Nasarawa, Adamawa, Rivers and Taraba states as orchestrated by armed civilians in the guise of herdsmen.
“We are more worried that these mass murders have continued unabated as if our security agencies are helpless,” he said.
The NLC president warned that the killings have constituted a major impediment to the much needed growth and development of the country as regular work in both informal and formal sectors of the economy has grimly been hampered while the economy groans.
Besides, he said the killings have threatened security of lives and properties, adding that these fatal attacks cannot be downplayed as mere communal clashes.
Wabba said the killings must stop now, insisting that those attacking the communities were not ghosts and should not be left untouched.
As an immediate solution, the NLC president said: “We therefore urge government to move further from merely sending policemen to the affected areas by constituting an emergency intervention panel that will transparently look at the issues and make urgent, workable recommendations that are potent enough to assuage any grievance(s) that may have caused these attacks.
“Government must not be perceived to be uninterested in ensuring peace and security in any part of the country for any reason.
“No government will survive the advent of another terrorist group in our country. Mass killing is enough a symptom of terrorism and we can’t afford to have our country classified as a safe haven for terrorist groups as these will scare off the much needed foreign investment in our country.”
To the TUC President, Comrade Bobboi Kaigama, it is high time the Federal Government and all security bodies in the country to fished out those behind the unabated killings in Benue the same way it was done in Rivers State recently.
and then