November 09, (THEWILL) – The Nigeria Police Force has deployed over 1,000 personnel to Ihiala local government area of Anambra state for the supplementary election scheduled for this Tuesday.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) suspended the collation of results for the Anambra State governorship election to allow voters in Ihiala cast their votes too.
According to the INEC returning officer, Prof. Florence Obi, there are 148,407 registered voters in the council, yet there was no election in the council area on Saturday due to security threats.
The election was then rescheduled to hold this Tuesday.
Speaking on the police’s preparedness for the ongoing supplementary election in the Council, the State Commissioner of Police, Echeng Echeng siad, “We are deploying more than a thousand to the polling booths. This makes an average of 3, 4, they are going to be complemented by other security agencies.
“All the tactical teams, Police Mobile Force (PMF) teams, we have pushed enough into Ihiala because we want to make sure that at every point that we anticipate a problem, we dominate the area. For whoever wants to come out tomorrow will have his own story to tell.”
As part of measures to avoid glitches in the election, the police boss said the Force has imposed a curfew across Ihiala LGA to avoid mayhem.
According to him, the restriction of movement commenced 11:55 pm on Monday and would end at 11:55 pm Tuesday.
He stated, “The firm standard applies to Ihiala, we are going to shut down from 11:55 pm today and open up at 11:55 pm tomorrow.
“There were reasons why that shut down had to be. It had to take care of entry and exit points, people not being allowed to come in and cause any problem. So we are going to do what exactly we did with the whole state, this time around restricted to Ihiala alone.”
The police commissioner also reacted to the claim by INEC that inadequate security prevented electoral officials from conducting polls in Ihiala.
While insisting that there was enough presence of security officials in the local council, Echeng noted that additional operatives have already been deployed to the affected local government.
When asked what makes Ihiala so much of a hotbed that is scary to people, he said, “INEC should answer that question, not the police. I still say emphatically that we are on the ground with other security agencies and as far as we are concerned, elections were supposed to be (held) there. So if INEC said there was a threat, they should answer that question.”
Meanwhile, INEC on Monday announced that the supplementary election will commence today at 10am and end at 4 p.m..
According to a statement signed by Barrister Festus Okoye, INEC head, Information and Voter Education Committee, the decision was taken following a careful review of the prevailing situation in Anambra state and is in consonance with the stakeholders including security agencies.
“The Commission urges political parties, voters, election duty officials, election observers, the media and the general public to note this slight modification.
“We also appeal to citizens to conduct themselves in an orderly manner to ensure that the election is brought to a peaceful conclusion,” the statement read.
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