APC leader condemns deployment of 30,000 policemen for Ekiti elections

Police I.G. Ibrahim Idris 

OrderPaperToday –  Deputy Senate Leader, Bala Na’Allah (APC, Kebbi) has criticized the deployment of 30,000 policemen to Ekiti state for its forthcoming election.

He wondered why 10,000 Policemen could not mobilized to troubled states but 30,000 could be used for elections.

Na’allah made these declarations while leading a debate on a bill to repeal the Police Act, 2004.

He said: “30,000 policemen to supervise an election in Ekiti while they could not mobilize 10,000 men to stop the killings in Zamfara and other places. Our party, the APC that I represent will frown at this, it is not part of our manifesto, it is not what we promised the people and I am sure that the President himself knows that this is not acceptable. Unfortunately, the Police have already conditioned that service, ‘korokoro’ eye service.

“We would continue to tell the people that we will leave our promise, that is why we are before you for the reform. Let it not be a situation where a killing would be involved and we have 10,000 police and an election is going on and we have 30,000 police. I don’t like that situation. I appall it and I think that it does not represent what we stand for as a party and therefore we would seek the indulgence of our colleagues to reform this institution that is called the Nigerian Police.”

Reacting to Bala’s statement, Deputy Senate, Ike Ekweremadu stressed the issue of sincerity in the deployment.

Ekweremadu said he has no problem with it but “sometimes, some of this statistics are misleading and it only goes to count when allowances are to be paid and nobody is sure how many people actually participated, meanwhile provision was made for that number that is my warning here.

“But if we have 30,000 policemen that we can deploy them and pay them and it can be accounted for, I have no problem with that anyways. We need to ensure accountability. This is important not just dropping figures.”