SAN FRANCISCO, January 23, (THEWILL) – The Lagos State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Friday raised the alarm over the violence the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has allegedly launched as a campaign strategy in Lagos.
The party said the increasing spate of violence the PDP has allegedly launched in Lagos will breach the peace and security of Lagos, if law enforcement agencies continue to turn a blind eye to the excesses of the party.
In a statement in Lagos, signed by the State Publicity Secretary of APC, Joe Igbokwe, the party said it had been inundated by reports of various acts of violence the PDP has visited on its party members all over Lagos as well as the removal of APC campaign posters in various parts of Lagos.
It warned that its tolerance and commitment to play by the rules should not be misconstrued as weakness as members of the party may be forced to react if the security agencies continue to look the way round as PDP launders violence in a bid to violently capture Lagos.
“Our party is alarmed that what the PDP wants to plunge a peaceful and very secured state like Lagos to mindless violence in a bid to capture the state in view of the negative reception it receives among Lagosians. Yesterday, there were several reports of PDP instigated violence in many parts of Lagos and we wonder if this is what the PDP wants to use to capture the enlightened state of Lagos.”
Yesterday, in Orile Agege, an APC member, Mr. Peter Eyitayo, was shot dead by thugs of a PDP candidate, Niyi Raheem, and another member is presently undergoing surgery as a result of gunshot by the same hoodlums unleashed by Niyi Raheem in Agege. “This case is well-known to the Divisional Police Officer at Elere Police Station, Agege, the State Commissioner and the Lagos State Police Command”. There were also reports of attacks launched by PDP thugs in Lagos Island and some other parts of Lagos.
“Also, we want to let the general public know that the PDP has embarked on a campaign of vandalising APC posters and billboards all over Lagos and we urge Lagosians to be fully vigilant and report and apprehend these vandals whereever they see them and also make reports to the nearest police station or our party offices and officials.
“We note that the PDP has gone dangerously desperate in view of the determination of Nigerians all over the country to do away with a party that has wrecked Nigeria in 16 years of horrendous leadership. Why they feel they will vent their frustrations on Lagosians is best known to them but it is certain that the party wants to subject the state that best shows their failure to attack and create violence in Lagos as a means of destabilising the state. Lagosians will not allow this trick and we urge them to resist the PDP at every place they launch their tricks.
“We wonder why PDP is not telling Nigerians what the PDP government has done in Lagos in its 16 years in power where they corner 52 per cent of statutory allocations each month with nothing for Lagosians. We note that all federal roads in Lagos have turned to craters and nightmares under PDP’s watch yet the party has the impudence to deny the universally acclaimed monumental achievements recorded in all sectors in Lagos for the past sixteen years.”
“Lagosians should note that by virtue of the huge resources at its disposal, the PDP federal government is supposed to replicate ten times everything that had been done by the Lagos State government in the past 16 years. But here we are; a party that had allowed the existing federal infrastructures in Lagos to decay and rot away is nursing a desire to add Lagos to the huge colony of waste it had rendered Nigeria in the past 16 years.”
“We call on every Lagosian, especially the civil society groups, the media, the professionals and market associations to condemn the present predilection to violence by Lagos PDP. We warn that nothing should be made to either return Lagos to the lawless enclave of violence it had put behind it or to make Lagosians, enjoying the fruits of good governance, to resort to violence to deal with the obnoxious inclination of the PDP to introduce and launch violence in Lagos as a means of capturing Lagos in next month’s election,” the statement said.
