The Nigeria Police Force yesterday said it raided the second floor of the complex of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) in Abuja last Wednesday in search of some incriminating documents to establish a case against an international “subversive” element who is a threat to Nigeria’s democracy.
Speaking on Channels Television’s Politics Today, Force Public Relations Officer, Muyiwa Adejobi, an Assistant Commissioner of Police, said the August 7 raid of the NLC Complex had a suspect housed by the labour union in one of its floors.
Adejobi said the second floor with an office used by the suspect was raided, and not the 10th floor housing the NLC HQ.
He said, “We recovered evidence to prove that the suspect is a threat to the nation, the man is a suspected subversive element.”
Recall that last Wednesday, the NLC said heavily armed security personnel stormed and raided its head office in the nation’s capital around 8:30 pm, and carted away documents.
The NLC had initially fingered security operatives from the Department of State Services. Still, the secret police immediately denied the allegations before it was later revealed that it was the Police that carried out the raid.
Officials and workers of the Labour union had subsequently boycotted work on August 8.
The raid was condemned by local and international rights groups like Amnesty International, among others.
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However, the force spokesman said that some landlord-tenant relationships were established between the NLC and the global suspects whose syndicate members had been arrested.
Adejobi said the raid was unconnected to the recent #EndBadGovernance nationwide protests.
According to him, the police have embarked on a forensic investigation and the NLC would be needed in the probe of the suspect claiming multiple foreign identities including being a Russian and a Briton.
“The NLC is not the suspect here. We had a target and whatever it takes, we must get him by all means,” Adejobi said, hinting that the suspect travels frequently out of Nigeria.
The raid was not to get the man but to recover certain incriminating evidence and we have gotten what we want, Adejobi said.
The police accused the suspect of “subversion” and threat to “run down the country.”
“We have (uncovered) plans that people want to run down Nigeria. We have (uncovered) plans that people want to destroy our democracy, destroy our common heritage called Nigeria, and we cannot keep quiet…We are getting enough help and we will get this man,” he said.
