The Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, while defending the police force over their failure to manage the violence that occured during the governorship elections which took place in Bayelsa and Kogi State, has pinned the blame of the violence on the thugs who allegedly disguised themselves as police men.
Mohammed Adamu said this on Tuesday November 19, 2019 which was published by the Nation, a newspaper firm in Nigeria.
Mohammed Ali had refused to assume responsibility of the uncontrolled violence which took place despite the fact that the Deputy Inspector General of Police AbdulMajid Ali, in charge of Kogi and Bayelsa States, disclosed prior to the elections that 66,241 police officers would be deployed: 35,200 to Kogi and 31,041 to Bayelsa.
Ali said:
“The police deployment shall involve the conventional police personnel who will be complemented by special units including the Police Mobile Force, Special Protection Unit, Counterterrorism Unit, Special Forces, Intelligence Response Unit, Special Tactical Squad, Mounted Troops and K9 Section, Airwing and the Marine detachment.”
Adamu claimed that the force received information which revealed that politicians had sew police and military uniforms for thug.
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He said:
“During the elections, anybody you saw either in police uniform or military uniform that did not carry the tag that had been given for the election, that person was not a genuine police officer or military officer or he was not on official duty. We were aware of the fact that or we were told that some politicians were going to sew police and military uniforms, so we devised some other means of identifying those who were on elections duty. We gave them tags.
“There was a police helicopter that was hovering. It was on patrol, and in the course of patrol, you will see some incidents of maybe people fighting, people trying to snatch ballot boxes. You need to intervene. In the course of intervention, of course, you can never use firearms because during elections we don’t carry firearms.
“So, that helicopter you saw was to patrol and scare those that would want to snatch ballot boxes. Of course, if you see a helicopter hovering over your head, if you wanted to snatch a ballot box or you had carried one, definitely you would know you are being monitored and you would stop. So, prevention was our focus.”
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in response to the statement of the IGP said his defense was wrong as the force were “careless and most unfortunate.”
PDP spokesman, Kola Ologbondiyan, in a tweet said;
“The statement credited to the IGP that ‘fake policemen’ disrupted the elections in Kogi and Bayelsa is nothing but careless and most unfortunate. To think that nearly 35 thousand policemen were deployed for the election yet they were overpowered by ‘fake policemen’ speaks volumes.”