LG Election: We’re Battle Ready! – CP Jimoh Moshood Assures Lagosians

P.M.EXPRESS reports that the Police boss stated this during a press conference at the State Police Headquarters, Ikeja, hintng that the Command has all it takes to maintain peace and order, before, during and after the election.

”We have been meeting for several days with the Lagos State Independent Electoral Commission ( LASIEC), and we have fine-tuned all the arrangements to ensure that we have a peaceful, free and fair Local Government election throughout the 20 Local Government areas and the 37 LCDAs.”

“As I speak with you, the operational order is out, the deployment of our personnel are equally out. And outside that, the Inspector General of Police has approved additional deployment to us which I won’t tell you the number, but very significant, from all the states that are contiguous to Lagos State. I won’t mention the number, but the approval is in thousands and he didn’t give us only the personnel, he gave us all the equipment that we needed, including the anti-riot equipment.”

”Though not that we don’t have equipment, but this is just to add to what we have, so that we are ready. And equally, we brought all other security and safety agencies in the states on board. We’ve had about two meetings in my office, outside the meeting that we had with the State Electoral Commission.”

”We had a series of meetings and we have detailed out all areas that we have to cover. We have equally ensured that we have enough deployment, that’s why we requested for additional manpower. And no doubt, the Lagos State Police Command has the highest strength into thousands of Police personnel.”

” But we are not leaving anything to chance and that is why we are bringing in Police officers from other states to ensure that we have the required number as stipulated by the INEC guidelines for the posting and deployment during elections. So, it is equally important for you to know that we have carried out all our threat assessments and know areas where there is hiccups or problems can come from and they are equally being addressed. The Marine Police has been mobilized to ensure proper patrol of the waterline area.”

”We have in Lagos waterline areas that are urban and we equally have waterline areas that are rural. So, all these major areas have been properly taken care of. So, Lagosians, the electorate, we are quite familiar that we have over 6 million, above 6million people in Lagos, the electorate, that have collected their PVCs. And all of them are encouraged to come out and vote massively for the candidates of their choice. So far, so good. Our plan is in three stages.”

“The plan that we put in place before the election, the security arrangement equally for the election proper and the security arrangement for aftermath of the election. Because mostly, there may not be a problem during the election year itself, it may be a problem before. And as we speak, all the political parties, 15 of them that are contesting in this election, are already on the field campaigning and weighing in their supporters on the need to come and support the various parties during the election.”

“So, everything is going well. We equally envisaged the aftermath of the election, there is going to be celebrations and there is going to be over-dramatization of either celebration or lost. So, we are equally prepared for that. And that is why our deployment is going to cover the whole week of the election. So that everybody, by Monday after the election, can go back to their official work and official responsibilities. Even if far from Sunday, I have to make it very clear.

If there is going to be restriction of movement, we are equally going to let members of the public be aware of the time. But as I speak, we are going to have meeting tomorrow, another meeting next tomorrow. So decision will be taken if there is going to be restriction of movement in certain area.”

”So, we are good to go for the election. And we are very bold to let you know that the IGP, the local authority have provided all the necessity, everything that we need. From manpower to logistics to everything we need to ensure that we police the election properly.

No single flash of any untoward incident has occurred at the campaign in its way. And we encourage the players, the stakeholders and others, who are participating in the election to play the game according to the rules and to ensure that we are here to secure them. Finally, all the other agencies that are not Federal Government agencies that have been participating in the national election will not be allowed to participate in security of this election.”

”So, we want you to get it across to them that the Police and other security and safety agencies under what we call the Interagency Consultative Committee on Election Security are strictly those that provide security for the election. So any quasi-locality security organization should know that they shouldn’t come out on the day of the election. If they have any concern, they should send it to us.”

”Additionally, our control room is going to be operational and the control room is going to be held at the Command Headquarters here where the Deputy Commissioner of Police in charge of Operations will be fully in charge of control room. All the representatives of all other agencies, including the military, will be in that control room so that if there is any issue of concern anywhere, we are going to meet with you. We equally have the trust and confidence in the State Independent Electoral Commission because we have met with them several times and their whole concern is also to ensure that we are on the same page to provide adequate security before, during and after the election.”