THE POLICE AND OSUN STATE ELECTION
Godwin Etakibuebu argues that the deployment of 40,000 police men to Osun is excessive
The governorship election of Osun State in South/West geo-political zone of Nigeria is holding this week Saturday, September 22, 2018, and it seems all government apparatus connected with elections are fully prepared. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is prepared and fully committed to the election next Saturday, according to its announced plans and these include stopping buying and selling of votes as witnessed in the Ekiti State governorship election last July.
The Nigeria Police Force has just rolled out its plan in ensuring that a “very free and fair” election holds in Osun State, come Saturday. The plan as announced by the Police in Abuja over the weekend says that the Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Kpotun Idris, has approved and in fact dispatched, one Deputy Inspector-General of Police [Joshak Habila in charge of Operations], one Assistant Inspector-General of Police, eight Commissioners of Police, 30 Armoured Personnel Carriers, 300 Patrol Vehicles and [unbelievable] 40,000 personnel: comprising the Police Mobile Force, Counter-Terrorism Unit, the Special Protection Unit, the Anti-Bomb Squad, Conventional Policemen, the Armament Unit, Personnel of the Federal Investigation and Intelligence Department, IG Monitoring Team, IG Intelligence Response Team, Sniffer dogs section and the mounted troop unit.
Deploying a whopping 40,000 police personnel in addition to other security agencies like the Nigerian Army, the Nigerian Navy, the Nigerian Air-Force, the Directorate of State Services [DSS], National Security and Civil Defence Corps [NSCDC], Federal Road Safety Corps [FRSC] to one state [just only one state] for an election must find a place in the World Guinness Record. There is need to analyse the advantage and otherwise cum the implication of this huge deployment.
Let us recall that the first time such huge deployment took place in Nigeria was during the last Ekiti State governorship election of July 14, 2018, where 30,000 police personnel, among other security practitioners were deployed. The government of the ruling political Party [APC] needed to win the Ekiti State election by all means so that it could showcase same to the world as evidence of Nigerians’ continued acceptability of the party and President Muhammadu Buhari.
In so doing the ruling party committed lots of atrocities which included, but not limited, to the sitting Governor of the State, a member of the opposition party [Peoples Democratic Party] being placed under house arrest for two days - effectively stopping him from going out to campaign for the last two days of the exercise. This was done by combination of police and military personnel drafted into the state by the federal government for the purpose of that election. I must however refrain from discussing most of the negative fallout of that chaotic usage of power by the APC government for now, as they are likely to be points of contest in the law court, where litigation bordering on the legality of the verdict declared by INEC is being contested between the PDP and the APC. But suffice to say that Ekiti State’s 30,000 police personnel deployment had no “acceptable advantageous colouration beyond the crude political principle of intimidation by a ruling party against the opposition.”
If the 30,000 police personnel deployed to conduct election in Ekiti State about two and half months ago was appropriately condemned by all as “overkill” how would the deployment of 40,000 personnel of the same Nigeria Police Force into Osun State for the governorship election be described? What purpose shall a 40,000-man squad meant to serve in Osun State when the place is not a war zone? Obviously, there must be more to the deployment than meets the eyes. It could not be an exercise for maintenance of law, order and sustenance of rule of law for democratic development in Nigeria.
Come to think of it, this deployment is being prosecuted by the same federal government that could not deploy 5000 police personnel to crisis flashspots in Benue and Plateau States to stop the killings being carried out by Fulani herdsmen against the indigenes of both states, in addition to other states of Adamawa, Kaduna and Taraba.
The interpretation of this massive deployment is that the APC government under the leadership of Buhari is perfectly prone to deploying troops to capturing of votes than to preservation and protection of lives. It is just unfortunate that this dangerous deployment of federal might for the sole purpose of capturing votes at any rate is starting from the South/West geo-political zone. One is being reminded that it happened before when votes were pursued anyhow during the general election of 1964 and the federal might was callously deployed to intimidate the opposition. The action led to resistance by the Yoruba people who believed that their votes have been stolen by the federal power, and this resistance led to “operation wetie” in the West and later “wild-wild-West”. The exercise cumulated in the bitter history of 1966, well-known to all of us today. It is not worth repeating that tragic journey.