Anambra poll: Police deploy 21,000 personnel —IGP

The Nigeria Police Force is to deploy 21,000 personnel for the conduct of the November 18 gubernatorial election in Anambra State.

Inspector general of police, Ibrahim Idris disclosed this in Abuja in a chat with State House corespondents after a meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari.

He said the forthcoming election was one of the issues  which he briefed the president on during the meeting.

Asked why he met with the president, he said: “Obviously, I am here as usual to discuss with the commander in-chief on the security challenges we are having and how we will face these challenges adequately.”

According to him: “The security challenges are obvious. You know we are having elections in Anambra State and we have also been having challenges in various parts of the country especially on the issue of kidnapping. These are things I discussed with the president and the measures taken to address them squarely.”

On the Anambra election, the police boss gave specifics on how the police are planning to handle the exercise, adding: “We are deploring a lot of police officers, almost about 21,000 police officers to be able to provide adequate security in the state during the election.

“We are deploying our water boats to take care of the water ways, we are deploring our helicopters to take care of the aerial surveillance and we are deploying our conventional police men and special police units to take care of situations on ground by the grace of God, we are going to have a successful and peaceful elections, in Anambra State.”

On the security situation on Kaduna-Abuja road, he said a police special unit has been deployed to the area to ensure security. He, however,  expressed delight that the National Assembly has approved death penalty for convicted kidnappers.

According to him, “we have deplored our special units there and we have arrested several of these kidnappers and I want to appreciate the effort of the National Assembly for approving sort of a death penalty for suspects arrested for kidnapping. I am sure that in some few weeks time, we are going to have drastic fall in the incidences of kidnapping in the country because of this punishment that has been made now by the National Assembly.”

When the Inspector General was asked whether he would appear before the Senate on the corruption allegations leveled against him.

He replied: “These are legal issues. We are discussing with our legal team. Obviously, if there is need, we are going to appear for the sake of showing respect for the Senate. I will appear before them.”

Asked when the suspects will be charged to court, he stated that: “We are taking them to court on a daily basis. Presently, we have almost over 3000 suspects in the various police stations all over the country and we are taking them to court.

“Recently, I set up a task force to sort of streamline or scrutinise these cases so that we can have speedy trial of some of these suspects.”