APC: Our leaders’ lives in danger

The party, in a statement issued in Lagos yesterday by the National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said that most of the party leaders had been placed under surveillance and have their phones bugged by the nation’s security agencies.The party said top party men being targeted are National Chairman Chief John Odigie-Oyegun; National Leader, Asiwaju […]

The party, in a statement issued in Lagos yesterday by the National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said that most of the party leaders had been placed under surveillance and have their phones bugged by the nation’s security agencies.
The party said top party men being targeted are National Chairman Chief John Odigie-Oyegun; National Leader, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu; Governor of Rivers State, Rotimi Amaechi; former Governor of Bayelsa State, Timipre Sylva; former Governor of Kwara State, Senator Bukola Saraki; Governor of Sokoto state Aliyu Magatagarda Wamakko and  Alhaji Lai Mohammed.
The APC further said that, “the recent military siege on Asiwaju Bola Tinubu’s residence and the Imo State Government House including  police harassment of APC’s Presidential Campaign spokesman, Mallam Garba Shehu, fit perfectly into this emerging pattern.”
Narrating his ordeal, the opposition campaign’s spokesperson said “I and the family members were woken from sleep by the noise from a swarm of strangers and the clattering sounds as they cocked their guns. It was a scary situation.”
“Looking from the window, I saw no less than 15 policemen bearing weapons, some in complete uniform and others not fully dressed. It was not in doubt that our Block S.A. 12, in the NNPC Quarters, Area 11, Garki was under a cordon. Two police cars blocked the incoming lane from the gate just by our block, and two others faced it blocking the exit way. A big white van with heavily tinted glasses was parked between blocks 12 and 14, which faced each other,” he explained.
Shehu added that “the armed men did not climb up to my apartment and I did not, for my part open the door to, as it were, hand myself into their hands.”
He said the siege “persisted for about an hour until two things happened: the twitter and the Facebook began to render accounts of the siege and the call to Muslim prayers came and passed without my family members leaving for the mosque.”
The Buhari campaign spokesperson said that “at this point, the van and three of the police vehicles drove off. The fourth one moved to the pavement by the playground with about five policemen in it. It remained there until some moments before 7am when that one too, drove off.”
He added that “since the end of the stand-off, I have been in communication with the Secret Service, the DSS and the Police at the highest levels. Both organizations denied knowledge of this operation at the beginning.”
“The Police Inspector-General returned after making his investigation to say that policemen were there following an emergency call by a neighbour who came under robbery attack. The telephone number of the distressed neighbour was given to me and his address was given as being Block S.A. 13. The Police account would have been plausible and acceptable to me but for the fact that the point of action, meaning the position of the police cars, the van and the armed men were around and between my own block S.A. 12 and 14 and therefore clearly removed from block 13, which the police report indicated,” Shehu said.
“The account of the heavily tinted van, that it brought policemen from NNPC to assist the police operation is neither here nor there because both the police and the oil company denied owning a van like that,” he said.
“For us at the APC presidential campaign, the duty of communication between our party and candidates on the one hand and the voting public on the other is one that is protected by the Constitution.  If any armed group of enforcers whether within the police or outside of it as many are suspecting is behind this act of intimidation, thinking they can break our spirit, they are mistaken. We are not going to give up,” the APC campaign director said.
In yet another development, Sokoto State Governor Aliyu Wamakkoalso had on Wednesday said his government would not be intimidated by the deployment of soldiers in strategic places in the state.
He alleged that the PDP led government was playing games with Nigerians.
The statement read in part: “We are alerting Nigerians that if anything happens to us, they should know where it is coming from, but for us, there is no going back because we are resolute.
“We are aware that several of our leaders, especially the National Publicity Secretary, have been marked down for arrest in the days to come.
We know there are evil plots to frame some of them on trumped-up charges. We know our lives are in danger. But these and more will not deter us from continuing to act in the national interest or from seeking to effect change through the ballot box.”
The party also said that despite the harassment and intimidation, its leaders and members would neither be intimidated nor succumb to the latest antics of the government. Any attempt to subdue the opposition, especially in the run-up to next month’s general elections would be resisted.
Meanwhile, the party has thanked Nigerians for their “immense and unwavering support since the postponement of the elections.”