The Lagos State chapter of the All Progressives Congress has raised the
alarm over the violence the PDP has launched as a campaign strategy in
Lagos. The party said that the increasing spates of violence the PDP has
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 release in Lagos, signed by the Lagos State Publicity Secretary of
the APC, Joe Igbokwe, the party said it had been inundated by reports of
various acts of violence the PD{ 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 the party members 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 vandalizing APC posters and bill boards all over Lagos and
we urge Lagosians to be fully vigilant and report and apprehend these
vandals where ever 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 sixteen 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
destabilizing 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 sixteen 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 sixteen 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 sixteen 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.”