The Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Idowu Owohunwa, has confirmed arrests of suspects linked to the pockets of violence in some polling units across the state during Saturday’s general elections.
The Lagos Police boss told Channels TV the situation has been brought under control. He also said the affected Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) officials were “rescued”.
“I can confirm that several arrests have been made but as at this moment it is still an ongoing process. So, I cannot conclusively say this is the number of polling units where violence was recorded but at the end of the day we will do a post-election evaluation and come up with specifics,” the police commissioner said.
Though there were skirmishes in some parts, Mr Owohunwa insists the polls have been largely peaceful.
He said: “It was an admixture of very peaceful conduct in most parts but we also recorded isolated instances of thuggery. Like I said earlier, we anticipated them and we have multiple teams to respond in the fastest manner.
“We were able to stabilise the situation and rescue the INEC officials,”.
The Nigeria Police Force has said it would deploy 310,973 of its personnel to the over 176,846 polling units nationwide for Saturday’s election
It was declared the personnel would consist of conventional policemen and women, the mobile police, the special counter-terrorism unit, Special Forces, the intelligence response team and other sections of the police.
The Force also said this number would be augmented with 51,000 personnel from the National Security and Civil Defense Corps, 21,000 from the Federal Road Safety Corps, 11,336 from the Nigeria Correctional Service, 9,447 from the National Drugs Law Enforcement Agency and 350 personnel from the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.
