The Inspector General of Police, IGP Olukayode Egbetokun says 35,000 police personnel will be deployed to complement other 8000 personnel from other security agencies for a free and fair Edo state governorship election.
IGP Egbetokun who also directed that all local security outfits in the state which were suspended remained suspended in the state disclosed this today at a stakeholders meeting in Benin City Edo state the management of election security was solely the responsibility of the Nigerian police force and other national security agencies within the Inter-agency Consultative Committee on Election Security (ICCES).
He warned any individual or group engaging in unauthorised security functions would face immediate arrest and prosecution.
He also warned all potential troublemakers contemplating disruptive actions to abandon such intentions.
“The security forces will not tolerate any form of political thuggery, violence or hooliganism. Any attempt to undermine the electoral process will be met with swift and decisive action.
Also speaking, Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Prof Mahmood Yakubu, assured that sensitive materials for the election would arrive Edo state next week and kept in the Central Bank of Nigeria
According to the INEC Chairman, active preparations for the election started last year with the release of the Timetable and Schedule of Activities for the election as required by law.
“Overall, 13 statutory activities were listed beginning with the publication of the Notice of Election and ending with the Election Day. This document has been widely publicised and as a reminder, we have included it in the information booklet circulated at this meeting”.
“Following the conclusion of the recent Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) in Edo State and the cleaning up of the data, 184,438 Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs) were delivered to Edo state.
The INEC chairman maintained that the commission has so far accredited 134 groups (124 domestic and 10 international, while 1,836 observers have also been deployed across the State.
“Similarly, we have accredited 114 media organisations deploying 721 journalists.”
“We have also accredited thousands of agents representing candidates and political parties at the 4,730 polling and collation locations made up of 4,519 polling units, 192 Ward collation centres, 18 Local Government collation centres and the State Collation Centre”.
“I want to assure you that the accreditation tags for all categories of stakeholders are ready. We will announce the date and venue for collection in the next 24 hours. Similarly, election duty vehicle stickers are available for collection from our Edo State office here in Benin City”.
He reassured stakeholders that INEC is ready for the election.
” We are deploying the BVAS machines for voter accreditation at polling units and for the upload of results to the INEC Result Viewing (IReV) portal. Only yesterday, we conducted mock accreditation in 12 polling units across six Local Government Areas in the three Senatorial Districts of the State”.