The All Progressives Congress (APC) has said it is being forced
to put on hold its membership registration following the
ransacking of its main data office in Lagos by officials of the
Department of State Security (DSS) and OP-MESA.
DSS, in a statement Sunday, claimed it had invaded APC’s
office on Saturday following a petition that it was being used to
clone Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)
permanent voters’ cards (PVCs) for the purpose of hacking into
the commission’s data base in order to corrupt and manipulate
it.
However, APC at a press conference held in Lagos by its
National Publicity Secretary, Lai Mohammed, described as
plainly implausible and a witless afterthought the reason given
by the DSS for invading the data centre of the party in Lagos at
the weekend, calling the security service a shameless apologist
of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
But as the main opposition party denounced the charge against
it, the Lagos Police Command announced yesterday that it
recovered about 1,700 voters’ cards from a bush at the Seme
border at the weekend.
Speaking on the invasion of APC’s office, Mohammed wondered
why any self-respecting intelligence-gathering agency would
rely on beer parlour gossip in carrying out its onerous
responsibility, “especially in a politically-charged environment
like what prevails in the country at present”.
He said: “The spokesperson for the DSS said the organisation
had put the building housing the data centre under surveillance,
and that it only acted after it was convinced that ‘unwholesome
activities’ were taking place. What hogwash!
“If indeed they put the place under surveillance, would they not
have been able to establish that it is an APC data centre? Even
if they were not sure, what prevented them from obtaining a
court order permitting them to enter and search the building
instead of carrying out a Gestapo-like operation? Are security
agencies above the law?
“To highlight their crudity and lack of professionalism, they had
to go and arrest one of the staffers who was not on duty just to
get the password to the servers they vandalised and took away.
This speaks volumes about the limitation of the DSS’
intelligence-gathering ability.
“If they had broken into the Boko Haram computer, would they
have gone to arrest Abubakar Shekau or any of his commanders
to give them the password to it?
“Nigerians can now see why no progress has been made in
using intelligence gathering to root out the evil Boko Haram.”
APC said far from the lies concocted by the DSS, which has now
become one of the enforcement arms of the PDP, the real reason
the service broke into the offices of the party was to deprive it of
its membership data base so it could no longer contact its
members, and also to aid and abet the rigging of the 2015
elections by the PDP.
“With the membership data base now in their possession, it has
become easy for them to collude with INEC to know in which
areas we are strong so they can scuttle the distribution of the
permanent voters’ cards there and, during the elections, to also
deprive such areas of voting materials,” the party alleged.
Owing to the invasion of its data centre, APC said it had been
forced to suspend its membership registration following the
damage done to the equipment in Lagos by the invading force of
the DSS and Nigerian Navy.
“'The viciousness and barbarism of the attack on the data
centre and the arrest of 26 innocent workers, which put a lie to
the DSS claim, have disrupted and corrupted the continuous
offline and online membership registration across the country.
'”The over 50 security men who invaded our offices not only
vandalised the offices, they pulled out and carted away the
server and computer systems. Their activities have therefore
affected the process of online/offline registration and data
capture of APC members across the country, hence we are left
with no choice than to suspend the process,” the party said.
It reiterated its earlier call for an independent inquiry into the
invasion, which it said had “taken the impunity of the Jonathan
administration to its worst level yet”, with a view to determining
the identity of those who sent the invading force and meting out
the necessary punishment to them, irrespective of their political
status.
“It is important to get to the bottom of this unprecedented action
in the political history of our nation, especially because it may
have compromised the 2015 general election,” APC said, calling
on all Nigerians as well as the country’s international partners
to condemn the primitive action.
But as APC decried the invasion of its Lagos data centre, the
ruling PDP yesterday alleged that the cloning of PVCs by the
main opposition party was an attempt by the APC to truncate
democracy in Nigeria and vowed to resist it.
The party said the weekend’s discovery by the DSS was
shocking to the effect that the opposition APC had engaged in
the cloning of PVCs and using cloners to hack into INEC’s data
base to compromise the 2015 general election.
PDP said in a statement signed by its National Publicity
Secretary Olisa Metuh that this discovery at the APC office in
Lagos was a clear confirmation of its stand and fears expressed
by well-meaning Nigerians of APC’s criminal desperation, lust
for power, plot to cause confusion and truncate democracy in
Nigeria.
“Indeed, Nigerians now know on what strength the APC, a party
that clearly lacks genuine followership among the citizens, has
been boasting that they will emerge victorious in the 2015
general election and has been threatening to form a parallel
government if they lose.
“Since its formation, the APC has been accusing everyone
including INEC and security agencies of working to rig the 2015
elections in favour of the PDP. Little did Nigerians realise that
such were smoke screens designed to divert attention from their
heinous and unpatriotic plots.
“We believe that the APC, in its desperate attempt to grab power
by all means, has already established cloning and hacking
centres in all the 36 states of the federation to actualise their
dubious machination to subvert the will of the people.
“We insist that the cloning of INEC PVCs is criminal and strikes
at the very heart of our electoral process. We share the fear of a
majority of Nigerians that the APC may have already started
cloning ballot papers and other election documents.
“It is in this regard that we call on all Nigerians and lovers of
democracy across the world to note the desperation of the APC.
Our citizens must therefore remain vigilant and resist any
attempt by the APC to steal their mandate.
“We also call on security agencies to fully investigate this
atrocious cloning and ensure that whoever is found culpable
faces the full weight of the law,” the PDP stated.
It said this development also placed an additional burden on
INEC, which must now work to prove that it is not complicit in
this heinous crime against the Nigerian state and its people.
PDP stressed that Nigerians had made huge sacrifices for the
“democracy we enjoy today and Nigerians cannot afford to
surrender it on the altar of blind ambition and the narrow
interest of the APC”.
In another incident, the Area K of the Lagos State Police
Command said yesterday it recovered about 1,700 PVCs from a
bush at the Seme area at the weekend.
The Police Public Relations Officer of the command, Kenneth
Nwosu, a Deputy Superintendent of Police, said the PVCs had
been abandoned.
He said: “Policemen attached to Area K Command Morogbo,
recovered about 1,700 permanent voters’ cards abandoned by
unknown persons in a bush at Seme Area.
“The PVCs were suspected to have been stolen from members
of staff of INEC at the Ajeromi area of Lagos.”
Already, he said investigations were ongoing by the personnel of
the Area K Command to unravel the culprits behind the act.

http://www.thisdaylive.com/articles/apc-accuses-dss-of-stalling-membership-drive-as-police-recover-1-700-pvcs-at-seme/195017/

My guess is APC will register you and clone your card, so it does not matter whether you vote or not.. someone is voting in your name - CLEVERRRRRR

APC is here to cause problem in this already crisis nation