By Gabriel Enogholase

BENIN— WEDNESDAY’s shooting of the Edo State Chairman of National Union of Air Transport Employees, NUATE, Comrade Godwin Ehikioya, by a Police Orderly with Force No. 97775 at the Benin Airport during the warning strike by the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, has taken a new turn as the Edo State chapters of the NLC and TUC have demanded for the immediate transfer of the  Deputy Commissioner of Police, Mr.  Olufemi  Adenaike, from the state’s police command.

According to the organized labour in a communique issued at the end of an emergency meeting yesterday in Benin, “Labour further viewed the tainted intervention orchestrated by the Deputy Commissioner of Police, Mr. Adenaike, to be borne out of force recklessness and recommends that the Deputy Commissioner should, with immediate effect, be posted out of Edo State Command.”

Both unions also demanded for the identification of and prosecution of the Police Orderly who carried out the shooting even as they demanded for the immediate vacation of the unilateral order of the Deputy Commissioner of Police to arrest some labour leaders in the state.

The NLC and TUC insisted that the intervention of the Deputy Commissioner of Police in the shooting incident was questionable to the extent that he ordered the manhandling of labour leaders, the use of tear gas and outright arrest which could have resulted in a serious violence but for the maturity of labour leaders who were at the scene.

In the communique signed by the Edo State Chairmen of NLC, TUC and JNC, Comrades Kaduna Eboigbodin, Joe Aligbe and Shaka Utoide respectively, the organized labour in the state pleaded with Governor Adams Oshiomhole, as the Chief Security officer of the state, to immediately intervene to unravel the mystery surrounding the shooting.