Chairman of the Labour Party in Lagos State, Kayode Salako, has condemned the recent attack and continued intimidation of the party’s supporters. He said, “The Labour Party and Peter Obi’s Campaign Organisation are a democratic movement and no member should be molested.
It was getting clearer by the day that the APC had officially adopted violent attacks on LP’s presidential candidate support groups across the country. We find this trend quite unacceptable and condemn the growing violence by some APC in most of the states controlled by the party.”
Last weekend suspected armed thugs in Lakowe town area of Lekki, Lagos unleashed terror on some Labour Party supporters who were holding a sensitisation rally in the area at the weekend. The incident caused pandemonium at the area as residents scampered for safety, running for their lives. One of the victims of the attack, Solomon Badeh blamed the attack on some suspected political thugs sponsored by the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the area.
“We were marching close to Lakowe junction when all of a sudden, a bus full of political thugs with all kinds of weapons stopped right in front of us and they started attacking us for no reason. “It was as if they were waiting for us. Some of them had cutlasses and the majority of them had different objects like sticks and stones and they started attacking us and we all had to run for safety,” he said.
Another victim of the attack, Oluwadare Bamidele, who is the Labour Party organizing secretary in Ibeju Lekki local government area, claimed that the attacks were premeditated. Oluwadare said the attackers were lying in wait inside the bus at a corner around the junction and emerged from the bus when they saw them at the junction. Oluwadare who was obviously still bleeding from the injuries sustained from the attack lamented the incessant attacks members of the Labour Party are getting from suspected thugs sponsored by the APC in Ibeju Lekki.
“We are getting death threats and suffering almost daily attacks from APC thugs warning us to desist from holding walks or rallies for the Labour Party here. They claim that Ibeju-Lekki belongs to the APC but this is not the case. “They may be the party in power now, but Nigerians are fed up and want change. We are not going to stop until we get change,” he said.
Oluwadare further called on security agencies to protect members of the opposition in this critical time, adding that “the thugs are operating with impunity and about eight members of the Labour Party including myself were injured from this attack and four of our members who were seriously injured have already been rushed to the hospital.”
