The Nigeria Police Force is to deploy 21,000 personnel for the conduct of the
November 18 governorship 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 presenting challenges 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 security challenges adequately.”
He spoke on the security challenges saying: “The security challenges are obviously you know we are having elections in Anambra state and we are having challenges in various part of the country especially some of these issues of kidnapping and these are things I discussed with the President and the measures taken to address it squarely.”
On the Anambra election, the police boss gave specifics on how the police planned to handle the exercise, adding: “Obviously we are deploring a lot of police officers, almost about 21,000 police officers to be able to provide adequate security in the Anambra 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 and by the grace of God, we are going to have a successful and peaceful elections in Anambra state.”
On security the security situation on Kaduna-Abuja road, he said a police special unit has been deployed to area to ensure security as he 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 providing sort of a death penalty for suspects arrested involved in some of these cases of kidnapping and sure that in some few weeks time, he we are going to have drastic fall in the report of some of these incidences of kidnapping on those areas because of these punishment that has been made now by the National Assembly.”
On when will the suspects be charged to court, he added: “We are taking them to court on everyday 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 scrutinize these cases so that we have speedy trial of some of these suspects.”
The Inspector General was also asked whether he would appear before the Senate on 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 having respect for the Senate. I will appear before them.”