Insecurity:- Sokoto NLC Holds Peaceful Protest Against Worsening Insecurity In North West
Insecurity:- Sokoto NLC Holds Peaceful Protest Against Worsening Insecurity In North West
The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Sokoto State Council, on Wednesday led a massive protest against the worsening insecurity engulfing Sokoto, Katsina, Kebbi and Zamfara States, declaring that relentless banditry, killings and abductions have plunged the North West into fear, hunger and despair.
The protest, led by the state NLC Chairman, Comrade Abdullahi Aliyu (Jungle), drew thousands of workers, civil society organisations, market unions and youths who converged at key points across Sokoto metropolis before marching to the NLC State Secretariat. Protesters chanted solidarity songs and displayed placards reading “End Insecurity Now,” “North-West Is Bleeding,” and “Government Must Protect Lives.”
Addressing the crowd, Comrade Aliyu described the demonstration as a collective outcry by workers and ordinary citizens whose lives and livelihoods, he said, have been devastated by incessant attacks on villages, farmlands and highways across the region.
He lamented that despite repeated assurances by authorities, residents of the affected states continue to live under constant threat, with farmers unable to access their farms, traders abandoning markets and thousands of families displaced from their ancestral homes.
The NLC accused armed criminal gangs of tightening their grip on rural communities, warning that the insecurity has crippled agriculture, worsened food shortages and deepened poverty in a region long regarded as Nigeria’s food basket.
According to the labour leader, the scale, frequency and persistence of the attacks underscore the urgent need for decisive and coordinated federal action to halt the descent into chaos.
Labour leaders therefore called on the Federal Government to immediately intensify security operations, deploy more personnel and modern equipment, and strengthen intelligence gathering to dismantle bandits’ networks operating across state boundaries. They insisted that the fight against insecurity must be holistic, sustained and devoid of political considerations.
The NLC further urged the Federal Government to uphold its constitutional responsibility to protect lives and property, stressing that no meaningful economic recovery or national development can occur in an atmosphere of fear and bloodshed. It also demanded improved welfare and support for security personnel on the frontlines, as well as urgent rehabilitation and resettlement of displaced persons.
The protest ended with a strong resolution demanding immediate federal intervention to free Sokoto, Katsina, Kebbi, Zamfara and the entire country from what the NLC described as “the shackles of insecurity bedevilling the nation,” warning that continued inaction would only worsen Nigeria’s humanitarian and economic crisis.
