The Lagos State chapter of the All Progressives Congress has asked Lagos residents not to vote for the Peoples Democratic Party in the forthcoming elections, saying doing so would turn the state into "a theatre of unending war and violence."

The opposition party, which accused President Goodluck Jonathan of courting "violent militia groups" in his bid to win the polls, said Lagosians needed to be alerted to the grand plan by the PDP to provoke violence in Lagos State, where "peace has endured for years."

The APC, in a statement by its Lagos State Publicity Secretary, Joe Igbokwe, said the recent rally by members of the Oodua Peoples Congress, with attendant vandalism of APC campaign posters and billboards signalled a return to the days of insecurity in the state, should PDP be voted in the forthcoming March 28 and April 11 general elections.

The statement read in part, "We want to alert the good people of Lagos to the grand design by the PDP that has supervised the worst security crisis the country since the civil war, to launch unending violence and seek to compromise the enviable security situation we have been enjoying when other parts of the country became theatres of insecurity.

"We want to alert Lagosians that sponsoring and launching gun-toting OPC militias on Lagos streets is the last ditch effort of an incompetent government to launch violence on Lagosians so as to prepare them for the return of wholesome criminality and other forms of insecurity that Lagosians have put behind them.

"We want to remind Lagosians that the same way and manner the PDP and the Jonathan presidency are sponsoring and arming OPC to cause mayhem and insecurity in Lagos was the same way the PDP armed and sponsored hoodlums in the South-South, and after elections they became kidnappers and assassins and Nigeria has not recovered from this. The same way and manner was also adopted by the PDP to train and sponsor hoodlums for electoral violence in the North and they were soon to become Boko Haram militants, as revealed by the late former National Security Adviser, Gen. Andrew Azazi.

"We want to warn Lagosians that the return of violent crime and violent political campaigns by the desperate PDP in its bid to overwhelm and conquer Lagos will inflict tremendous harm on their wellbeing and security, if Lagosians cast their votes for the PDP. We warn that voting for PDP, which has compromised the peace and tranquillity of Lagos as a result of its deadly desire for power in recent weeks."

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