A former Chairman of the Nigerian chapter of Transparency International, Maj. Gen. Ishola Williams (retd), has said the Nigeria police is still operating on its 1949 structure, hence its inability to provide security for elections in the country.
He therefore called for the scrapping of the Ministry of Police Affairs and canvassed for the placement of the force under the Ministry of Interior for effective supervision.
Speaking at a post-election management review organised by the CLEEN Foundation on Monday in Abuja, the retired military officer said it was not right for the National Security Adviser and the military to be involved in election security, stressing that this is not part of their business.
He said, “If well structured, Nigeria would have no problems with elections. States should organise their own polls, what is the business of INEC organising governorship elections? The Nigeria police is still based on 1949 structure and that is why it cannot provide election security.
“The Police affairs ministry should be scrapped and the Force placed under the interior ministry. It should have a Director-General in charge of intelligence and general investigation.”
Williams insisted that the Independent National Electoral Commission erred by involving the NSA and soldiers in the 2015 polls, noting that in Ghana, for instance, there is a security coordinating committee that handles election security.
“In Ghana, they have the security coordinating committee which oversees election security; the NSA should not be involved (in elections) at all. When I saw their budget running into billions, I just shook my head and wondered what they are doing with such amount of money,” Williams stated.
According to him, the allegations of rigging that trailed Ekiti and Osun governorship elections should not have happened, noting that the deployment of soldiers for the polls should not have been done since other security agencies were available to assist the police in supervising the election.
Williams’ submission was however countered by Prof. Okey Ibeanu from INEC, who argued that the electoral agency had a basis in law for allowing the military to take part in election security.
He also defended the NSA’s involvement in the elections, stressing that its role was to coordinate the advisory from the various security agencies in the country, noting that the deployment of soldiers was to deter political thugs from disrupting the polls.
The Inspector-General of Police, Solomon Arase, said there is a lot to be done in terms of organisation and securing the electoral process, adding that “this is the time to start planning for 2019 and other staggered elections like the governorship polls in Bayelsa, Edo, Ondo, Osun and Kogi States.”
Credit: Punch
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