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By Christopher Oji, Lagos
The Inspector General of Police, Mr Usman Alkali Baba, has assured that the Force was ready for the 2023 general election.
The IGP also assured Nigerians of safety during and after the elections.
According to him, the Force will deploy more sweepers before the election to reclaim more public spaces
The IGP, who was speaking during the commissioning of the newly built IGP Usman Alkali Baba Explosive Ordinance Disposal – Combined Joint Chemical, Biological and Nuclear ( EOD-CBRN) conference hall and transit camp in Lagos, said all necessary equipment was ready, adding that other security training was being done for the police ahead of the 2023 elections.
“Nigerians should expect better security in the upcoming general elections. I assure you that EOD will perform better than the way it used to be. That is why the police management team is more concerned about the training of personnel of the EOD. The training enhances their performance because where there is no training, there will be a problem, but I want to assure you that with the training we are giving to the personnel of EOD, Nigeria should expect a better performance. As it is, we are deploying more Sweepers across the state to reclaim more public spaces. We have been reclaiming more spaces in the North East. We will continue to do it before and after the election.
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The IGP who was represented by Deputy Inspector General of Police in charge of Operations, Mr Bala Zama Senchi, said: “I want to state clearly that all these commissioning and development of new equipment are projects that show that we are preparing very well ahead of the 2023 General elections to ensure that Nigerians will go to bed and have their eyes closed. I want to emphasise that the police are putting everything in place for the security of Nigerians. Nigerians should expect good results from us. As we did it in Anambra, Osun and Ekiti states. We will replicate what we did in those states in the General elections.”
Speaking on the circulation of EOD equipment around Nigeria before the 2023 election, the DIG stated that the commissioning in Lagos was not the only one thus far in Nigeria.
“There have been other commissioning in other parts of the country, but Lagos being the epicentre of the commercial capital of Nigeria, occupies a very important space that is why we want to showcase some of the equipment in Lagos before any other states in the country, he said.
He also assures Nigeria of the legal distribution of explosives, saying that anyone who does not have business with explosives would not be allowed to have them, “the EOD personnel is posted to various magazines, where they supervise, and also if there is any movement of explosives they also escort them to their appropriate destination. The essence is to ensure it does not get into the wrong hands and presently we have been achieving a lot. More arrests have been made and that is why we have reduced the number of explosions all over Nigerians,” he added.
He appealed to the members of the public to play their part in ensuring that there would be no explosion in the country,” the police can’t be found everywhere at a particular time hence, it’s the duty of the members of the public to alert the police whenever they suspect any form of an explosive device. When you suspect any object, don’t touch it, report it to the nearest police station and the personnel on duty know what to do. If it is the one that we will be invited, we should be contacted.”
