By SIMON EBEGBULEM

BENIN CITY-THE three day warning strike embarked upon by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), turned bloody in Edo state Wednesday, when a trigger happy mobile police officer attached to a Judge from a neighouring state, shot at the state chairman of the National Union of Air Transport Employees (NUATE), Comrade Godwin Ehikioya, when the union leaders tried to enforce the strike directive at the Benin Airport.

The state chairman of the NLC, Comrade Kaduna Eboigbodin and his deputy Eddy Ossai, were equally man handled by mobile policemen on the orders of the Edo state Deputy Commissioner of Police, Femi Adenaike, when they rushed to the Airport in solidarity with their colleague who was shot on his hand and presently at an undisclosed hospital.

Consequently, the NLC boss in the state, Comrade Eboigbodin, has called for the removal of the Deputy Commissioner of Police in the state for his alleged man handling of union leaders. They NLC vowed also to extend the warning strike in Edo state till Monday to protest the shooting of their colleague.

Vanguard learnt that trouble started when the union leaders attempted to stop passengers from boarding an Arik Air plane that just arrived from Lagos and the security aides to the yet to be identified judge, was said to have shot  Ehikioya in his hand and shot sporadically into the air to protect himself.

Comrade Eboigbodin who addressed newsmen shortly after the incident, accused the DCP in the state, Femi Adenaike of calling for reinforcement of mobile policemen to harass them at the airport and allowed the Arik Air to fly back to Lagos by force instead of “consultation and persuasion”.

According to him, “an orderly attached to an individual which we are yet to identify was responsible for the shooting of Ehikioya while he was, monitoring the strike at the Benin airport. As we speak, he is currently hospitalized, we have not been able to know the fatality but we know the injury is on his arms. We tried to go there and seek some elements of redress when another incident happened when the Deputy commissioner of Police, one Adenaike at the later part of the whole issue, he allowed the flight to go as against the promise that everybody must disembark as Arik was not supposed to be on air and to also use the opportunity to identify the principal of that police.

“ I was manhandled, he insisted in even arresting the NLC deputy chairman (Eddy Ossai), it took the intervention of the Department of State Security Service (SSS) before he could leave the airport premises and he still insisting that he is going to go after him. We have resolved in Edo state that Deputy Commissioner of Police must be posted out of the state because he was very, very reckless. He came there to provoke an ordinary situation that would have been calmly resolved and in solidarity with our colleagues who was shot, the warning strike in Edo state would be extended. By Monday we are not going to resume until we watch the concern of the authority, we have communicated to our national body and we are also aware that the issue has been taken up with the AIG at the national level” he stated.

Meanwhile the warning strike action yesterday paralysed activities in government offices and institutions in the state including banks..