Inspector-general of police assures election observers of their security saying no one will leave in body bags

ACTING inspector-general of police Mohammed Adamu has assured international elections observers of their safety ahead of next Saturday's polls guaranteeing them that nobody will leave the country in a body bag.

Over the last week, there has been a lot of commentary on the role of international observers and election monitors, with Kaduna State's Governor Nasir El-Rufai warning that they will be sent away in body bags if they interfere in the process. As a result of the heightened tension, former US president Bill Clinton cancelled a planned trip to Nigeria, saying he did not want his visit to be politicised.

Seeking to douse the tension, Mr Adamu who spoke yesterday at a national briefing of accredited observers for the elections assured them of adequate protection and appealed to them to move around with their identification tags during the exercise. Mr Adamu equally assured the  Independent National Electoral Commission (Inec) that the police was determined to collaborate with them to check vote buying.

Mr Adamu said: “Security agents should look out for vote buyers and sellers and we are certainly going to make arrests. They must also ensure adequate protection of electoral materials, main and ad-hoc staff and the observers.

"Let me assure the observers both foreign and domestic that you will be adequately protected before, during and after the general elections. Observers must wear identification tags throughout the process for easy identification.

“Anybody shouting party slogans, wearing branded party dresses, or campaigning at the polling stations shall be arrested. Any security agent at the polling station without identification tags shall be arrested and the security agents must ensure strict compliance with the restrictions on human and vehicular movement.”

He further revealed that six deputy inspector-generals of Police would be deployed to the six geopolitical zones as well as 24 assistant inspectors-generals of police. According to Mr Adamu, over 24,000 mobile police personnel, 4,000 counter-terrorism personnel and about 8,000 special protection personnel will be deployed too.

Mr Adamu added: “I work tirelessly with Inec, with the office of the National Security Adviser and other security agencies to make sure that 2019 election is done in a secure manner, in a purely professional manner, in  a way that a level playing field is provided for every political party and this indicates that all the security agencies will be impartial in the conduct of the 2019 general elections. All the commissioners of police were made to identify the flashpoints within their states and to identify those that will cause what will lead to the disruption of elections and make sure that we bring them to order before the elections."

“We have done a threat analysis in all the states commands and the state commissioners of police are also going to identify all the polling units and voting points within the commands in cooperation with the resident electoral commissions to make sure that all the polling units are known before the day of the election. Apart from the regular police officers and other security agencies posted, we have our tactical units like the mobile police force, the counter-terrorism unit, our special protection unit are all deployed to give additional security.”