Operatives of the De partment of State Security and armed military personnel invaded the membership data centre of the All Progressives Con gress (APC) at Number 10, Bola Ajibola Street, off Allen Avenue in Ikeja, Lagos in the early hours of yesterday.

In what the party described as a “gestapo-like operation”, the security officials said to be numbering about 50 blocked the two major street entrances to the APC data centre, pulled down the gates and spent over two hours ransacking and van dalizing the office.

“More than a dozen comput ers were destroyed. The server was also vandalized along with other equipment in the build ing,” witnesses said.

Twenty five data agents working in the centre dur ing the invasion were arrested alongside three security guards.

Narrating his experience to newsmen, one of the security guards on duty, Mr. Oladele Adepitan, who said his mobile phone had been confiscated, spoke on the operation: “They came in several vehicles about 5.45am, stormed the place, turned everything upside down before they whisked away the staff.” According to Adepitan, he was spared to take care of the compound after their de parture.

While briefing the press at the scene, Lagos State Public ity Secretary of the APC, Mr. Joe Igbokwe, who was accom panied by the state Vice Chair man, Chief Funso Ologunde, condemned the action, which they described as, “The worst political brigandage since 1999,” stressing that, “It shows the level of PDP despration to­wards 2015.”

The APC chieftains, who predicted the PDP’s sound de feat across Nigeria next year, however, assured the parents of the arrested staff of their safety in the hands of the security per sonnel, adding that, “our law yers are already in Shangisha office of the DSS to secure their release.”

Similarly, in a statement is sued in Ijebu-Ode on Saturday by its National Publicity Sec retary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the APC strongly condemned the invasion, calling it perhaps the worst political scandal in Nigeria’s history. The party said the invasion could only be likened to the Watergate Scandal that led to the resigna tion of US President, Richard Nixon in 1974, as a result of the June 17, 1972, break-in at the Democratic National Com mittee (DNC) headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C., and the attempted cover-up of its in volvement by the Republican Nixon Administration.

It, therefore, called for an independent inquiry to fish out those who ordered the needless and unprovoked attack on the office of the APC and ensure that they face very serious con sequences, irrespective of their status.

“Saturday’s attack is another one in the string of attacks and illegal actions of the PDP-led administration. The attack was unwarranted and unjustifiable. To attack one of the offices of the opposition party, APC, where legitimate operations of the party were being under­taken is an act of fascism and totalitarianism. To the point of brigandage, the invasion of the APC centre is an assault on the APC and its entire membership across the country. It must not go unpunished,” APC said

The party said though it had been tipped off about an im pending attack on the ‘secret warehouse’ of our leader, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, “we dismissed such plan because there was no ‘secret warehouse’ anywhere and also because we never imagined that the government will attack the offices of an opposition party in a constitu tional democracy. Obviously we under-estimated the des­peration of the Jonathan Ad ministration and its worsening proclivity to impunity.”

Giving details of the inva sion, the APC said in the early hours of Saturday morning, a combined team of men of the DSS and OP-MESA stormed the Bola Ajibola Data centre belonging to the APC in the Ikeja area of Lagos and ar rested 25 APC data agents and three security guards.

“In what was a gestapo-like operation, the APC mem bership data centre located at Number 10, Bola Ajibola Street, off Allen Avenue in Ike ja, came under siege between the hours of 5:30 am and 7:30 am on Saturday. An operation of terror and brigandage was unleashed on a legitimate oper ation of a leading national par ty. They came without a search warrant for the premises. Over 50 security operatives drafted from Abuja operations blocked the two major street entrances to the APC data entry centre, pulled down the gates and spent over 2 hours ransacking and vandalizing the centre.

“More than a dozen comput ers were destroyed. The server was also vandalized along with other equipments in the build ing. Just like the Watergate scandal in the USA, the state-sponsored security operatives apparently acting at the behest of the ruling PDP government turned the office upside down, and pulled out and vandalized everything in sight.

“If the PDP-led government and the security agents had done due diligence and acted professionally, they would have known that the APC data centre is a legitimate opera tion and the staff are Nigerian youths who were left jobless by the Jonathan government. Apart from the Lagos centre, the operation is decentralized and similar centres are func tional in about six different lo cations around the country.

“They chose to believe the lie that it was a warehouse be longing to one of the national leaders of the party where dan gerous weapons were being kept, when in fact it is a centre for entering the data provided by the millions of Nigerians who registered as members of the party during its member ship registration exercise,” the party said. It described the invasion as another act of im punity, now a trademark of the Jonathan-led presidency, which is being edged on by the hawks in the PDP. APC called the in vasion of its offices an attempt to suppress the opposition, get details of its membership with the intention of using it to rig the 2015 elections and also to destroy the spirit of democracy.

“When in Oct. 6th, 2013 we issued a statement alerting Nigerians that the Jonathan Administration was using Riv ers State as a testing ground for creeping fascism ahead of the 2015 elections, some said we were raising a false alarm.

“Well, here we are. In the past five months, the PDP-led government has stepped up its acts of impunity and ter ror against the leaders of the APC and all non-PDP actors. Elected officers, who are not PDP members, have had their rights repeatedly violated by the police and other security operatives. Never before has an elected government been so scared of the opposition to the point of shutting it down.

“Now that they have over reached themselves by attack ing the offices of the main op position party and destroying part of its membership data base, can the PDP-led govern ment still claim to be operating under the rule of law? Can the government sincerely tell the world it is now ready for a free and fair elections in 2015? This is one impunity too many, and we will not allow it to be swept under the carpet,” the party vowed