Kogi State was, again, yesterday morning, thrown into mourning, as an active labour leader in the state and the Chairman, Non Academic Staff Union (NASU), Comrade Abdulmumini Yakubu was murdered in cold blood.
The slain labour leader described as ‘a fearless and vocal person’ was said to be observing his magrib (Islamic evening prayer) at his Okene residence when some gunmen emerged from nowhere and sprayed hot bullets on him leaving him in his pool of his blood.
His friend, who was said to be with him at the time of the incident, was also said to have been killed while the gunmen disappeared into the thin air.
This was coming on the heels of the negotiations going on between organised labour and the state government over the lingering industrial action that has crippled the state for the past six weeks.
On hearing the news, the labour immediately suspended further negotiations with the state government.
The Chairman of Nigeria Labour Congress, Comrade Onuh Edoka and his TUC counterpart, Comrade Ranti Matthew Ojo, in a statement, in Lokoja, said they were yet to know why the unionist was gruesomely murdered.
According to them, the negotiation which supposed to continue with government, yesterday, was suspended to enable labour leaders mourn their slain colleague.
They said the late Abdulmumuni Yakubu who was until his death, the branch chairman of Non Academic Staff Union of Secondary Schools (NASU) at the Kogi State Science Technology and Technical Education Board, was gruesomely murdered alongside his friend in his house in Okene.
According to the organised labour, the murder of the unionist is a confirmation of the fear that the lives of labour leaders in the state are daily threatened because of their agitations for better welfare package for civil servants in the state.
They said the labour leaders will return to the negotiating table as soon as there is full assurances of their safety and that of the members of their families.
The organised labour condemned the murder of the union leader and called on Kogi State police command to urgently unravel his killers, saying the organised labour in the state will fight on to ensure that his death would not go the way of many unresolved murder cases in Kogi State.
In a similar development, a man identified as Abdul Ganiyu Aduki was also murdered while his daughter and wife were fatally injured at their Nagazi residence in Adavi Local Government Area of the state .
An eyewitness account said the wife of the deceased was shot along with his five-year-old daughter both of whom are now in a critical condition in a private hospital in Okene.
It was gathered that the sad incident occurred, on Tuesday, October 31, at their private residence on Inori Street of Nagazi community area, at about 6.30p.m.
When contacted t he State Police Public Relations Officer confirmed both incidents, and said the police have spread out its dragnet to arrest the perpetrators.