BY ADEDAPO AKINREFON

With allegations and counter allegations of attacks emanating from the three frontline political parties (APC, PDP and LP), the Ekiti State Police Command says it has adopted measures to address the issue.

Speaking with Vanguard, the Police Public Relations Officer, PPRO, Mr. Victor Obayemi disclosed that some of the attacks were either genuine, trivial or falsehood.

Obayemi said “if you have been following the sequence of events since the electioneering campaigns started, you will notice that there have been allegations and counter allegations. While some are genuine, some are trivial and some are outright false hood. We have been having them and we have itemized them into those three categories which are the genuine ones, the trivial ones and the false ones. We have received all sorts of allegations. For the genuine ones, we take them very seriously and we look into them.”

On steps taken by the Ekiti State Police Command since inception of electioneering campaigns, he said: “I can tell you that since the commencement of this electioneering campaign, we have made a number of arrests and some have been taken to court.

I can tell you that a whole lot of people have been arrested, some cases are under investigation and we are still looking for some people who are on the run because they know the police is looking for them. For the trivial ones, we have cautioned the persons involved and warned them very seriously that any case of violence or attacks is against the law and will be taken very seriously. That is how we are dealing with them.”

“For the false alarms that have been raised, we have been warning those raising such that those false alarms are capable of heating up the polity and that they are trying to create problems where there is none.”

Speaking further, the police image maker said “if you have been following the politics of Ekiti State, you will know that this is the first time in the politics of the state where we have witnessed the least number of violence in the electioneering campaigns. It is not what we are doing, it is what we have done. We have been partnering with politicians and political parties. It is a carrot and stick approach. We have been talking but where we find people crossing the line, we use the stick according to the dictates of the law.”

Also, he said “We have been able to put a whole lot of strategies in place and some of those strategies have been working perfectly for us. I can assure you that we have a lot of machinery in place, we have a lot of personnel in place and we have put them in motion to forestall law and order in the forthcoming elections in the state.”