Point One

Organised labour pulled back on its nationwide strike last Wednesday, following intervention by the Federal Government through National Security Adviser (NSA) Nuhu Ribadu. That was after nearly 48 hours into the action it had threatened would be indefinite until government met its demands over brutalisation of Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) President Joe Ajaero along with other labour leaders in Owerri on November 1. Ajaero had been in the Imo State capital to arrowhead a planned protest by state workers against Governor Hope Uzodinma over labour grievances that included outstanding salary arrears, allegedly unjust declaration of 11,000 state employees as ghost workers, unsettled gratuities, non-compliance by the state government with the N30,000 minimum wage act, and declaration of 10,000 pensioners as ghost retirees. Labour warriors including leaders from the other labour centre – the Trade Union Congress (TUC) – had gathered at the NLC state secretariat in Owerri to begin a scheduled

There are five days to the 11th November governorship elections in Bayelsa, Imo and Kogi (BIK) states and all is apparently set by now with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in its preparations. The commission has for some while been saying all non-sensitive materials were deployed on sites, and in a couple of days hence it should begin to send out the ballot papers and result sheets that constitute the sensitive items. For its part, the security establishment has indicated it has firmed up the game plan for securing the election environment; and political actors must themselves be on the last lap of electioneering in the public which began since 14th July and closes by law at 12 midnight on Thursday, 09th November. The elections will involve combined population of 5.1million voters who picked their permanent voter cards (PVCs) out of 5.4million captured on the electoral body’s roll of registered voters in the BIK states. According to the commission, out of 1,056,862