Police deploy helicopters, drones, MOPOL ahead of Osun governorship election

The Nigeria Police Force has assured residents of Osun State of adequate security ahead of Saturday’s governorship election, announcing the deployment of helicopters, drones, Mobile Police personnel and other security operatives across the state.

The Force Public Relations Officer, Okokon Iniedu, gave the assurance on Friday at the Osun State Police Command headquarters in Osogbo after addressing officers deployed for the election.

Iniedu said the Inspector-General of Police, Tunji Disu, had directed the police to ensure a safe, peaceful and credible election while protecting lives and property.

He said, “Vote buying is an electoral malpractice and we will not tolerate any form of vote buying in Osun State. The IGP has directed the Deputy Inspector General in charge of the election to ensure that anybody caught in the process of vote-buying be arrested and prosecuted immediately. Like the DIG even said this morning, we will treat electoral offences decisively in this election.”

The police spokesperson further assured voters, INEC officials and other election personnel of the neutrality of the security agencies.

“The directive of the federal police is that we conduct a secure, safe and seamless election,” he said.

Giving details of the security arrangements, Iniedu said aerial surveillance had commenced across the state, while personnel had been deployed to polling units, INEC offices and other strategic locations.

He explained, “As we speak, our air components have arrived, our helicopter and drone units are on the ground and they have commenced surveillance patrols across the state. We have also deployed one unit of the Police Mobile Force to each local government area. For the Independent National Electoral Commission, we have two units of combat-ready armed MOPOL personnel.

“We also have seven units of Special Protection Unit personnel that will be responsible for the movement of sensitive and non-sensitive INEC materials for the election, as well as the protection of our electoral officers.”

He said additional MOPOL personnel had been stationed at the command headquarters for rapid response, while patrol teams and checkpoints had been deployed across the state.

According to Iniedu, “For this election too, the IGP has directed that we post four unarmed personnel to each polling booth. Osun State has over 3,700 polling units; we’ll be having four law enforcement personnel at each of these units for the elections.”

He said the police had conducted security threat assessments across all 30 local government areas and deployed personnel based on the identified risks.

He added that covert operatives would also be deployed to gather intelligence and respond to emerging threats.