A former Governor of Lagos State, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, says soldiers have placed him under surveillance for the past three days.
Tinubu, in a statement on Tuesday by his Media Office, claimed that the soldiers numbering 30 were first noticed in a truck close to his Ikoyi, Lagos residence around 11pm on Sunday.
A soldier, Capt. Sagir Kooli, who exposed the alleged rigging of the June 2014 Ekiti State governorship election, had in a video which went viral last week said that Tinubu’s telephone was bugged by the Department of State Services.
The former governor said in the statement that the soldiers were initially stationed about 500 metres from the gate of his house before they moved closer.
Tinubu explained that on Monday night , the soldiers returned in two vans and stayed throughout the night.
He claimed that some of them alighted from the vans and walked back and forth in front of the house.
The APC leader,who alleged that the vans were stationed on both sides of the house on Tuesday morning, vowed not to be intimidated by the government.
He said, “I remain resolute in my advocacy and support for the rule of law. President Goodluck Jonathan’s government has through the service chiefs staged a coup against Nigerians and the 1999 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.”
Tinubu advised Jonathan not to take Nigeria back to the days that followed the annulment of the June 12, 1993 election and urged the Yoruba to hold Jonathan responsible should anything happen to him.
He said, “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.”
In a separate statement, the Lagos State chapter of the APC described the development as unfortunate and an evidence that Jonathan was abusing the military.
The statement by the state Publicity Secretary of the party, Joe Igbokwe, noted that soldiers were used in harassing and arresting leaders of the APC in Ekiti State during the governorship elections.
It described the abuse of soldiers as ‘‘an act of desperation being perpetuated by a dying regime.’’
The party said while Chad and Niger Republic were deploying soldiers to fight Boko Haram, the Federal Government was using soldiers to intimidate the opposition.
The statement read in part, “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 warn that the PDP and the Jonathan presidency are struggling in vain for nothing will save them from being thrown to the dumpsite of history.
“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.”
However, the Deputy Director of Information, Nigerian Army 81 Division, Col. Mustapha Anka, denied that soldiers were deployed to monitor Tinubu.
