By Victor Ahiuma-Young

THE President, Danjuma Musa; General Secretary, Sheikh Mohammed, and Deputy General Secretary, Okon Etim, all of National Union of Banks, Insurance and Financial Institutions Employees, NUBIFIE, were, weekend, arrested at the union’s secretariat, Lagos, by officers from the Federal Criminal Investigative Department, FCID, Alagbon Close, Ikoyi.

Though the reasons for their arrest were still hazy at press time, it was gathered that the union leaders have been having running battles with officials of the Ministry of Labour and Employment, some former members of the union and other individuals said to be uncomfortable with the union’s association with the United Labour Congress of Nigeria, ULC.

Police

A member of the union, who volunteered information on condition of anonymity, claimed the arrests might be connected to the petitions by some former members of the union working with some external forces, who vowed that they will not accept NUBIFIE’s affiliation with ULC.

According to the source, “some labour leaders have written several letters to the Police, DSS and our emplo-yers, painting NUBIFIE leaders in a bad light.

“Earlier in the year, our President was arrested and flown to Abuja, where he spent about four days in detention. During his detention, he was pressured to either resign as President or renounce our affiliation to ULC.

“Several accusations were levelled against him. At the end, it was discovered that those accusations were unfounded. In fact, the accusations were earlier dismissed by the court, which awarded damages in favour of our union.

“Today (yesterday), we were in a meeting at the secretariat when fully-armed policemen came without warrant of arrest, whisked away the President, General Secretary and Deputy General Secretary.

“They presently detained at Alagbon, Ikoyi, Lagos.”