BY ALBERT AKPOR

WITH the April general elections around the corner, the Police High Command in Lagos has assured that its men would not be allowed to use lethal weapons at the various polling stations across the country. It said the move was to guard against what it described as ‘accidental discharge’ and ensure casualty-free elections. The Assistant Inspector-General of Police (AIG) in-charge of Zone 2 command, Onikan Lagos Alhaji Suleiman Fakai told Vanguard Metro that the police was poised to breaking a record by ensuring violence-free elections, adding that part of the measures was to avoid the use of fire arms at polling boots. The police chief who wants politicians and stakeholders to see the forthcoming general elections as a ‘national exercise’, maintained that if everybody, including politicians and their supporters could comport themselves and abide by rules of the game, there would not be need for policemen to carry arms and ammunition around polling stations and election areas.

According to him: “For purpose of emphasis, this is not the first time we are conducting elections in this country and I can assure you that the police is ever-ready to ensure violence free elections. We are ready because our primary responsibility is to maintain law and order by way of enforcing electoral laws. Part of our strategies is to discourage the use of fire arms at polling boots if the politicians will cooperate with us. Carrying lethal weapons at polling stations will create tension, so we want to make sure that our armed personnel are not allowed to go directly near the polling boots; but they can be somewhere around monitoring the conduct of the elections. Only non-lethal weapons, mostly teargas will be used at polling boots. But again, in this country we cannot totally remove armed men from polling boots because sometimes, our politicians can be more armed than policemen. So we have to enforce Order 327 so that we will know when to use our fire arms. I can conveniently tell you that despite the fact that our sister security services will assist us, the military will only come in minimally when there is absolute need for that. They will operate at the background. In short, I think they will be used mostly to escort election materials”.

Continuing, AIG Fakai said: “The politicians should also obey the law, they should see the election as a national exercise; not leaving the whole responsibility or enforcing the law to the police. They should help us to have peaceful elections and elect our leaders peacefully. They should abide by the laws. If people conduct themselves in peaceful manner, there would not be need to have armed personnel at polling boots.”