Soldiers mass at Tinubu’s gate

Lagos State All Progressives Congress (APC) raised the alarm on Tuesday over the deployment of soldiers to the gate of the residence of former governor of Lagos State, Senator Bola Tinubu, in Ikoyi.
A statement from Tinubu’s media office reads: “For three straight days, the private residence of the national leader of the APC, Bola Tinubu, has been under surveillance by battle-ready and helmet-wearing soldiers. Numbering close to thirty and riding in three patrol vans and an army truck stationed close to the entrance of the gate to Tinubu’s house along Bourdillon Road in Ikoyi, they have become a permanent feature. Their obvious target, Tinubu himself and perhaps the hordes of politicians and visitors that visit his Bourdillon residence.
“The soldiers were first noticed on Sunday a few minutes to 11pm in an army truck. They stationed about 500 meters away from Tinubu’s gate. Later, they moved close to his gate as if making efforts to enter. The stern looking soldiers were around for hours on Sunday and returned on Monday to continue their surveillance. Monday night about 10.45pm, they returned to the residence in two army vans and were there throughout the night. Some of the soldiers discharged from the van and walked back and forth in front of the house and around the house in what is clearly some casing effort.
“This morning, Tuesday, two vans from the army were stationed on both sides of the house along Bourdillon road their missions shrouded in secrecy.
“In a swift reaction, Tinubu said he will not be intimidated by this show of strength, intimidation and possible harassment.
“I remain resolute in my advocacy and support for the rule of law. Jonathan’s government has, through the service chiefs, staged a coup against Nigerians and the Constitution and now wants to silence his critics. I will not be muzzled through the barrel of the gun. The guns and bullets they should use to defeat Boko Haram are now being turned against the opposition and innocent Nigerians,” he said.
“Tinubu remains emphatically resolute and committed to the path of change in Nigeria and the liberating manifesto of the All Progressives Party, APC. Tinubu is an unrelenting critic of the maladministration of the Jonathan-led PDP government. Tinubu is credited to have played the most pivotal role in the re-building of the Nigerian opposition and the formation of the APC, Nigeria’s most formidable opposition party since independence.
“The exact mission of the soldiers is not known but it fits clearly into a new pattern of intimidation of leaders of the APC and the opposition. The recent massing of soldiers for three days now at Tinubu’s gate might be part of a broader plan by the Jonathan Presidency to intimidate Tinubu and his political associates and scare him from making provocative statements or building a broad coalition against the present government as he did during the NADECO days.
“As the scaremongering by the army continues, Nigerians must come to the realisation that the military has abandoned its statutory role and have now being dragged into partisan politics. Nigerians and the South-West should hold the Jonathan-led military responsible if any harm or danger comes to Tinubu and his family. The case of the “Unknown Soldier” is too recent in our memory”.
Also raising the alarm, the Lagos State APC condemned the military siege.
The party sees this as clear and present danger that the ambition of President Goodluck Jonathan to hang onto power even as Nigerians have clearly rejected him, is prodding Nigeria into disaster if not arrested now.
In a statement in Lagos by the state Publicity Secretary, Joe Igbokwe, the party said fully armed and well kitted soldiers have been stationed at the gate of its National Leader since Sunday in a brazen show of despotism and an intimidation against the rising influence and popularity of Tinubu.
The party warns that Jonathan and the leadership of the PDP, scared of the mass rejection it is presently facing after wasting precious years of Nigerians’ lives, will plunge Nigeria into intractable crisis if it does not arrest its present predilection to bringing Nigeria down because Nigerians have rejected PDP.
“Nigerians know that the PDP, its leaders, supporters, enablers dread Tinubu like a pestilence and if the weight of the gargantuan smear campaign and devilish propaganda the PDP has sponsored against the person of Tinubu has failed to sway Nigerians to continue supporting the banditry of PDP governance, it should know that it is struggling in vain. For the PDP to think that after fighting the military to a standstill, Asiwaju should be intimidated by the impotent show of force by a dying, failed regime and its scared enablers, then it must have its head examined. Ever since PDP felt that Tinubu is the single most-dreaded force against its crave for more irresponsible power, it had spared nothing in trying to contain the political force our National Leader has become. Its gamut of smear propaganda, procured with the trillions of Naira that have been audaciously stolen from the country’s treasury by the PDP and officials of the Jonathan regime, have failed woefully as Tinubu continues to rise in the political orbit of the country.
“We see the attempt to intimidate and harass Tinubu as one of the desperate efforts by a dying regime to arrest the forces of history and warns that the PDP and the Jonathan presidency are struggling in vain for nothing as this will not save them from being thrown to the dumpsite of history. We see this brazen display of brute force as yet another in the series of the criminal misuse of the army which should be fighting the rampaging Boko Haram insurgents but have been turned into the enforcement wing of PDP’s inordinate selfish ambition. A nation that is being assailed with the sordid details of the misuse of the army to rig elections for the PDP in Ekiti is today being treated with the scenario of using the same army to intimidate opposition forces so as to procure another extension for a failed regime that ranks not only as the most corrupt but the most clueless and incompetent in the history of the country. It is a pity that when poor countries like Niger and Chad are sending troops to fight insurgents in Nigeria, our own troops are being deployed to fight the opposition and intimidate the nation for the sole purpose of forcing through the dead ambition for continuation by a failed and bankrupt regime.
“We urge Nigerians to rise up and fight the creeping culture of impunity and deliberate misuse of the army and other security agencies for the prosecution of the hideous interests of both Jonathan and the PDP. We want to remind Nigerians that the country belongs to us and not to power drunk and very corrupt officials of the Jonathan presidency and the PDP. We warn that nothing should be done to force this country to a needless crisis for the provocateurs of such crisis will not escape the fallout of their selfish actions.”