Idowu Owohunwa, commissioner of police for Lagos State, has revealed that certain people suspected of being involved in the violence that broke out at a few voting places on election day have been apprehended.
The head of the Lagos police force informed Channels TV that they had the situation under control. Officials from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) were reportedly among those who were “rescued” by him.
Many arrests have been made, but this is still an active investigation. In other words, “I cannot state definitively that this is the number of polling stations where violence was recorded, but we will undertake a post-election study and come up with details,” the police commissioner added.
Mr Owohunwa claims that the elections had been calm overall notwithstanding some localised violence.
He said that although most of the time was spent peacefully, there were a few incidences of violence that were documented. In addition to having prepared for them, we also have many teams ready to act quickly.
We brought the situation under control and saved the INEC officials.
Around 176,846 voting places will be set up throughout Nigeria, and the Nigeria Police Force has said that 310,973 officers would be sent there to ensure a smooth election on Saturday.
It was announced that regular police officers, the mobile police, a special counter-terrorism squad, Special Forces, an intelligence response team, and members of other police units will make up the force.
Additional personnel from the National Security and Civil Defense Corps (51,000), the Federal Road Safety Corps (21,000), the Nigeria Correctional Service (11,336), the National Drugs Law Enforcement Agency (9,447), and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (350) were also announced by the Force.