25th September, 2013
The Lagos State chapter of the All Progressives Congress, APC, has warned that the party will not tolerate further violence against members of the party in any part of Nigeria.
The party issued this warning following the attack on members of APC who were heading for a party meeting in the Abia Central Senatorial Zone by hoodlums suspected to be sponsored by the PDP and the Abia State government.
In a release in Lagos, signed by the Lagos State Interim Publicity Secretary of the APC, Joe Igbokwe, the party said that resorting to violence is the last option for a failed and bankrupt party that had mismanaged the country to a breaking point in fifteen years of corrupt and unproductive leadership.
The party said there is no hope in sight for PDP having failed Nigerians so woefully.
“We fail to understand what was the crime of Nigerians freely exercising their fundamental political rights to merit the unleashing of well armed thugs and hoodlums on them by a fidgety party and government if not that it wants to employ crude force after failing in governance for fifteen awful years.
“As nothing will stop an idea whose time has come, we know that the end has come for the PDP rule in Abia and no primitive deployment of raw terror will stop this. We urge APC members in Abia to remain committed to this cause irrespective of the desperation of the PDP in Abia State.
“We state that it is within the rights of Nigerians to belong to the political party of their choice and that we will resist any attempt to visit violence on innocent party members anywhere in Nigeria just for belonging to a different political party. We state that we will not allow sponsored agents of a failed party to intimidate our members anywhere in Nigeria in a bid to forcefully continue the ruination of Nigeria and we see the attack near Aba as another case of a failed party and its agents to restrict participation in the politics of Abia State.”
According to the party, “it is not difficult to understand why the PDP and its agents are jittery about the future. It is easier to understand why it is in a desperate state in Abia given the colossal failure of governance the party has visited the state with in the past fourteen years of rudderless and very corrupt governance. We assure that the APC is determined to take over Abia State from 2015 and unleash the same forces of development which had eluded the state since 1999 and which Abia indigenes earnestly yearn for.
“We join our teeming members nationwide to praise our members in Abia Central Senatorial Zone for resisting the temptation to retaliate in the face of the desperate and provocative attack but we warn that such restraint might not be possible next time. We equally urge law enforcement agents to get to the root of the attack and fish out the perpetrators with a view to meting adequate punishment to them and their sponsors.
“We draw the attention of the police high command and all other security agencies to investigate this attack and ensure the protection of its members in bia and a possible escalation of political crisis in Abia State as a result of the fidgety attitude of the PDP in Abia State to the growth of opposition to its continued stay in power.”