Minimum wage – Police in Plateau tear-gas protesting LGA workers

By ‌Isreal Joel

Joint security task force comprising the police and the army on Monday fired teargas on protesting Local Government workers in Plateau State.

Our correspondent reports that the aggrieved workers from the seventeen Local Government Areas of the state had been protesting the non-payment of the N30, 000 minimum wage by the state government for the past one month .

It was also  that the  LGA workers who were all dressed in black attires had gathered at the state Secretariat in Jos to continue their protest  as usual when the security operatives invaded the area with tear gas to disperse them.

When our Correspondent visited the State Secretariat in Jos around 2 .30pm, security operatives were seen patrolling the areas.

However, the workers who regrouped at the State Secretariat junction flyover were seen chanting anti-government slogans.

They also  vowed to continue with the protests and insisted that they would not be intimidated by the action of security operatives  to abandon their demands

 Vice-Chairman of the National Union of Local Government Employees, Bokkos LGA, Barnabas Phillip, told  some newsmen in Jos on Monday that during the operation, 32 of their members were arrested by the operatives and taken to the headquarters of the Jos Metropolitan Development Board .

When contacted, Spokesman for the State Police Command, Ubah Ogaba, denied knowledge of any arrest made by his men in connection with the protests.

‌Ogaba said, “I am not aware that any LGA worker has been arrested. When we learnt that some people were planning to disrupt the peace in the state,  we only deployed our men and officers in the state Secretariate to ensure nothing like that happened he stressed .