Ekiti Decides 2026: Police ‘ve heightened security around flashpoints — CP Shogunle

From Romanus Ugwu, in Ekiti

The Commissioner of Police (CP) for Ekiti State governorship election, CP Abayomi Shogunle, has reassured voters and stakeholders of a peaceful exercise with the heightening of security presence around all the identified flashpoint in the state.

CP Shogunle gave the assurance while speaking to newsmen at St Michael Primary School Olubobokun Compound voting centre, disclosing that there has not been any incident of vote buying and selling so far.

He said that security agents are on high alert in those flashpoint locations and have deployed adequate resources to ensure that no negative incidents occur during the exercise.

Asked if there identified flashpoint, CP Shogunle said: “Yes, there are flashpoints. There are areas of interest where we have heightened security concerns, and put in place necessary security measures to prevent any potential incidents.”

“We are on high alert in those locations and have deployed adequate resources to ensure that no negative incidents occur,” he assured.

Making a general appraisal of the situation, CP Shogunle said: “As we are seeing here, the same situation is being replicated across all polling units in the Local Government Areas of Ekiti State.”

“Accreditation and voting commenced promptly at 8:30 a.m this morning. As you can also observe, there is a high turnout of voters, which is quite different from what we have witnessed in some previous elections, where people usually come out in large numbers only at the beginning.

“However, within the first hour of the election, we have continued to witness a significant turnout of voters. This confirms the findings of our pre-election assessment, during which voters expressed high level of confidence in the security arrangements put in place for this election.

“As far back as two days ago, based on our assessments, we anticipated that many people would come out today to vote. That is exactly what we are beginning to see. So far, voting has been peaceful, based on reports I have been receiving from across the LGAs. We expect this peaceful atmosphere to continue until the end of the voting process,” he assured.

Confirming that there has not been any reports of vote-buying, he said: “As we speak now we have not received any report of vote-buying or related incidents.”