Security has been beefed up in Offa Local Government Area of Kwara State as tension mounts over the local government election taking place today.

The election was ordered by the court which about six months ago nullified the earlier one after the then Local Government Chairman, Saheed Popoola, and the councillors all of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) had spent two years in office.

The then ACN men are contesting the election on the platform of the newly registered All Progressives Congress (APC) into which ACN had dissolved and they would contest against their Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) opponents in the earlier election.

A statement signed by the State Police Public Rations Officer, Olufemi Fabode, warned against any violence that could affect the election, saying his command would not tolerate any act of thuggery or lawlessness from any quarters.

However, the APC has accused the Kwara chapter of the PDP of crying wolf in its allegation that it plans to disrupt the election, saying the PDP is indeed the purveyor of violence and the mastermind of rigging.

In a statement issued in London on Friday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, APC said the allegation is also an admittance of failure on the part of the PDP, which has been in power in Kwara over the last 10 years.

''If a government that has been in power for this length of time, that has control over the police and the State Security Service (SSS) is now crying wolf over an isolated local government re-run, it can only mean one thing, that the government has lost control of events in the state and that it is no longer sure of the support of the people it claims to be governing.

''The truth is that the PDP has never won elections in Offa Local Government, and they are convinced that Saturday's elections will not be different, hence the shameful allegation of violence and rigging against the APC,'' it said.