781 Election Violators Are Detained By Police Countrywide
Usman Alkali Baba, the Inspector General of Police (IGP), said yesterday that 781 people were detained nationwide during the Presidential and Governorship elections.
At a meeting with the Commissioners of Police from the 36 states of the union, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), and the Assistant Inspectors General of Police in charge of the Zonal Commands, the IGP made this disclosure.
Exactly 781 people have been detained as of this writing, according to the IGP.
In contrast to the 203 people detained during the presidential election, 578 people were detained during the governorship and state assembly elections.
During the general elections in 2023, members of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) made over 700 arrests for breaking electoral regulations.
The IGP provided information about the 781 arrests, saying: “Feedbacks so far received across the 36 States of the Federation and the FCT indicates that a total of 489 major electoral infractions leading to a total of 781 offenders were recorded nationally, both during the Presidential and National Assembly Elections and the Governorship and State Houses of Assembly Elections, while not less than 66 firearms of various descriptions were recovered f
“According to a summary, there were 185 serious electoral offenses registered during the Presidential and National Assembly Elections, leading to 203 arrests and the recovery of 18 guns. Similar to this, 304 electoral offenses totaling 578 arrests and 48 weapons were reported during the State Houses of Assembly and Gubernatorial elections.
The IGP reaffirmed that the police would work with INEC leadership to ensure that all electoral violators were swiftly and transparently punished, but added that this was also done to further the police’s goal of sanitizing the democratic environment.
In order to centrally compile and organize the processing, prior to the start of the prosecution procedure, he said: “I have commanded that all electoral offenses case files across all State Commands be presented to my office.
You are instructed to use your discretion to issue administrative bail to the suspects while this procedure is being finalised in order to prevent human rights violations that might arise from holding the offenders for an extended period of time before filing charges against them. But, you must take into account the nature of their offences and make sure that they, in accordance with law and custom, fit into the categories that are often eligible for bail at the police level.
The IGP also criticized political players that use ethnic profiling to further their own interests and advised Nigerians to work toward unity instead.
