Police Strike fails to take off

A planned nationwide strike by junior police officers in crime-ridden Nigeria to press for wage hikes, better work conditions and promotions failed to take off on Monday, a spokesman said.

“There is no strike. Everybody is at his duty post. We are in touch with all state police commissioners who confirmed that their men are working,” police spokesman Haz Iwendi told AFP.

“Banks are open. Business is going on. There is no cause for alarm. The threat is a figment of imagination,” he said.

A previously unknown group dubbing itself the National Union of Policemen (NUP) had threatened to launch a strike from today over poor wages, deteriorating work conditions and lack of promotions.

“We reject the insensitivity to our plight as Nigerians. A nationwide mobilisation is on course and it shall be a mother of all strikes,” the union said in a statement.

“We are resolved to re-make the Nigerian police force. The living conditions of men of the Nigerian police are worse that those of pigs,” it said.

In an effort to avert the strike, President Olusegun Obasanjo met with top police officers in Abuja and promised to look into the demands of the 330,000-strong force.

Corporal Sam Iweagwu of the Lagos police command told AFP the strike had been suspended.

“We are working because the government has promised to look into our grievances. In the past few days, senior police officers have been going round the states to appeal to us to shelve the plan”, he said.

“We listened to them because of the interests of the public. We don’t want to jeopardise the security of the people,” he said.

Police across the country were reported to be on duty today, notably in the northern city of Kano, the capital Abuja and the southwestern towns of Akure, Abeokuta and Ibadan.

If the strike had gone ahead, it would have been the second in four years. In 2002, junior officers launched a general strike that almost crippled economic and commercial activities in Africa’s most populous nation for two days.

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