Why There Was No Violence During Presidential Poll — FPRO

The Nigeria Police Force has given insight into why the recently concluded Presidential/National Assembly elections were not marred by violence compared to past elections.

The Force spokesperson, CSP Olumuyiwa Adejobi, told THE WHISTLER during an exclusive interview that although over 180 cases of electoral offences were recorded and 203 offenders arrested, the exercise was violence-free.

“Compared to what we used to experience as the lead agency in election security management, this one was better.

“There were very few compared to what we used to have and this time around the cases of killings were not many, unlike previous elections where you have 500-600 people die during and after the election. And for whatever it is, we are not having post-election violence,” Adejobi said.

Similarly, he said unprofessional conduct by policemen deployed on election duties was also minimal during the last election.

“Previously, we often record police brutality on election days and unprofessional conduct but this time around we didn’t record much. In fact, most of the incidents being peddled or circulated on social media at the end of the day were not true.

“They were false alarms of policemen aiding to snatch ballot boxes and the likes, except for two or three cases that are at various stages of investigation for now.

“I know in Calabar, those police officers that were arrested with some soldiers, the so-called fake soldiers; I know of the one in Port Harcourt where ballot boxes fell off from a pick-up and the policemen who escorted a Federal Honourable to one place in Kogi where they were tearing election materials, all have been arrested,” he explained, noting that even International observers “came around to commend the police and other security agencies.”

Giving reasons for the improvement in the conduct of police officers on election duties, Adejobi attributed the development to the series of training and retraining of operatives at all levels since n August 2022.

The officers, according to him, were trained by various Non-Government organisations (NGOs) and other stakeholders on election security management, human relations and professional conduct.

He said operatives of the Force involved in electoral malpractice were those attached to VIPs and not those deployed for the election.

“But what we had noticed is that some of them were not deployed for election duties. They were those attached to various VIPs despite the directive of the IGP (Inspector General of Police), Usman Alkali Baba).

“So, we are asking questions from the commanders of those areas, who actually deployed them because the IGP’s directive was clear and, he’s still insisting that they should be withdrawn for election purposes. You don’t expect any security operative to accompany any VIP to his polling unit or accompany him around while elections are on.,” he stated.

Adejobi, however, acknowledged that one of the prevalent cases of insecurity during the election was political thuggery. He said politicians should be blamed for “grooming and using them (thugs) to disrupt the electoral process.”

Despite the relative calm during and after the election, pockets of violence were recorded in parts of Bayelsa, Akwa Ibom, Borno, Lagos, Kogi, Abia, Rivers and Adamawa states, among others.