Nigeria Security Agents Raid Opposition Office

Nigeria's main opposition party claimed on Sunday that security agents had ransacked its office in Lagos, arresting workers and seizing documents, in the latest flareup ahead of February elections.

The All Progressives Congress (APC) said 28 workers were arrested during the raid on its data center in Lagos early Saturday, which the party likened to the Watergate burglary in the United States in the 1970s.

"Over 50 security operatives drafted from Abuja blocked the two major street entrances to the APC data entry center, pulled down the gates, and spent over two hours ransacking and vandalizing the center," APC spokesman Lai Mohammed told Agence France-Presse.

"More than a dozen computers were destroyed. The server was also vandalized along with other equipment in the building," he said.

"Saturday's attack is another one in the string of attacks and illegal actions of the PDP-led administration," Mohammed said, referring to President Goodluck Jonathan's ruling Peoples Democratic Party.

He described the raid as the worst political scandal in Nigeria's history and likened it to the Watergate scandal that led to the resignation of U.S. president Richard Nixon in 1974.

"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," he said.

He called for an independent inquiry to find those responsible for the raid, which came on the day the APC warned the government against a plan to arrest the speaker of the House of Representatives after he quit the ruling party for the opposition.

Speaker Aminu Tambuwal was also tear-gassed on Thursday as police tried to prevent him and other lawmakers from entering the chamber.

Tensions are rising in the run-up to the February elections in Africa's most populous country, which has a history of electoral violence and irregularities.

The International Crisis Group warned on Friday that the vote might be "volatile and vicious" and advised that "an increasingly violent" political climate must be checked to avoid widespread unrest.