The Nigerian Army (NA) has denied holding leaders of the Organised Labour to ransom during an ongoing meeting with the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), George Akume, in Abuja on Monday night.
The Army was responding to a viral social media message credited to the Labour organisations that troops were stationed at the venue of the meeting between the SGF and Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress (TUC) leaders over the ongoing indefinite strike action embarked upon by workers to press home their demands for a new minimum wage and reversal of electricity tariff hike.
The message read: “BREAKING NEWS! Soldiers are presently surrounding the venue of the meeting between Labour and Government at the premises of the SGF.”
But, taking to its verified social media handles on Monday night, the Nigerian Army Headquarters said soldiers present at the venue of the SGF-Labour meeting were escorts of the National Security Adviser (NSA), Nuhu Ribadu, who was also attending the crucial meeting, and that the soldiers were not there for any other purpose.
“The attention of Army Headquarters has been drawn to a false breaking news by NLC alleging that soldiers currently surround the venue of the ongoing meeting between NLC and the SGF.
“Kindly note that the NSA, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, who is also attending the meeting, arrived at the meeting venue with his retinue of statutorily approved military escorts. Once the meeting is over, the escorts will lead the NSA from the venue .
“Kindly disregard the deliberate and misleading falsehood being peddled about the presence of the escorts at the meeting,” the Army Headquarters wrote.
