The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has attributed reports of an impending attack on the party’s national secretariat in Abuja by some thugs as reasons it beefed up security at the party with deployment of additional Police officers.
The Blantyre street, Wuse 2, office of the ruling party, and its adjoining streets were at the early hours of Monday cordoned by the police, who also took over the party amidst fear of a looming attack.
The ruling party has been engulfed in leadership crisis, since July 17, 2021, following a spli supreme court Judgement on Ondo state governorship election, which affirmed the election of Governor Rotimi Akeredolu, but however raised legal concerns on the position of Governor Mai Mala Buni as chairman of the APC caretaker committee.
Briefing the media on the huge pretence of the police at the party secretariat, secretary of the Caretaker and Extra Ordinary Convention Planning Committee, senator John Akpanudedeghe, said the police was invited to strengthen the leadership of the caretaker committee.
AkpanUduedeghe revealed that the APC leadership was privy to a security report that the secretariat could be attacked by hoodlums.
“it is incumbent on our part to strengthen Secretariat so that we can protect the lives and property of APC members.
‘APC cannot be embarrassed because this is a national government, therefore we take measures to fore store any happenings, we cannot under estimate security report. We cannot play down on it. We have a security report, we can’t take laws into our hands, you can’t expect us to call thugs to defend the national secretariat. The right thing to do is to inform the police and the SSS that they may know that so so thing has happened.”
The secretary stated further that the APC would to protect itself, especially in the recent outbreak of the delta variant of COVID – 19.
“Another measure we want to take is that if you don’t have your face mask, because of the delta variant, you will not be able to come to the national secretariat.
On how much of the security report does it threaten the party, he said, “No one should take anything for granted as little as a rumour is, we must have to put everything in place, even the one that is not verifiable, just rumour we must put it in place because we cannot be embarrassed. I’m privileged to have been the minister of FCT, I’m privileged to have been a local government chairman, I’m privileged to have sat on federal executive council and I have been privileged to have sat as member security and intelligence committee of the senate. So what we consider to be threat is not what you consider to be threat. A mere word that you passed by we would heighten it because we don’t want to be embarrassed. We cannot embarrass the president, we cannot embarrass the government of APC, we cannot embarrass ourselves.”
