The Police Service Commission has advised operatives of the Nigerian Police Force to exhibit absolute professionalism and impartiality during the general elections.
Dr. Jumbo Offor, representing the Organised Private Sector and South-East in the commission, gave the advice on Friday in Umuahia, while addressing police officers in the Abia command.
He spoke on the expectations of the commission from the police during the polls, describing the role of the police as critical to the success of the elections.
He said: “The election is very important to Nigeria and international community.
“The police force is very important for the success of the exercise because it provides more than 85 per cent of the security personnel that would supervise and monitor the elections.”
“The Nigerian Police are professionals. It is for you to exhibit professionalism during the elections.”
He further urged them to be patient with the electorate and approachable even in the face of provocation.
“People will provoke you during the exercise but do not react except if you are pushed to the wall, where you have to defend yourself.
“Police must show approachability and have a listening ear to advise the electorate, when necessary.”
He said that oeratives on election duty “must not use force unnecessarily, ” adding that they must wear their name tags at all times.
He further admonished the police not to take sides during the polls, saying that “police must be impartial”.
He said that Abia remained one of the most politically peaceful states in the country, saying that “Abia is not known for violent elections.
“We are known for comporting ourselves during elections,” he said, hoping that the situation during the 2019 polls would not be an exception.
Offor underscored the need for government to cater for the welfare of the police force.
According to him, it is the duty of government to provide accommodation, good wages, allowances and uniforms to spur the police to operate efficiently like their counterparts in other parts of the world.
He said that the commission had so far visited 29 states of the federation on the same mission, while thanking the Abia command for the large turnout of its officers at the meeting.
Earlier, the Commissioner of Police in the state, Chris Ezike, said that the commission was in Abia to talk to officers on the onerous responsibility they were expected to accomplish during the polls.
Ezike said that it was the duty of the men and officers of the force deployed to the field to ensure that the elections were free, fair, credible and non-violent in the state.
He said that it was imperative for them to be conscious that their actions and inactions during the exercise were being closely monitored.
He therefore charged them to be above board and ensure that they conformed with the commission’s established rules and regulations.
He expressed the need for the police operatives to be familiar with the dos and don’ts as provided in the Electoral Law.
The police boss said that the increase in the number of registered voters from about 1.4 million in 2015 to more than 1.9 million in 2019 placed more challenges of supervision on the command.
He said that the activities of the proscribed Independent People of Biafra, which had its operational base in Umuahia, hoodlums and cultists further compounded the situation.
He, however, said that the command was poised to crackdown on anybody or group that might rise to disrupt the peaceful conduct of the polls in Abia.
He said that in spite of the fear about the activities of the IPOB, Abia was not a danger zone.
He said: “To us, IPOB has been proscribed. It does not exist. We will continue to monitor their activities. We shall arrest and prosecute anyone we found disrupting the elections.”
“Our job is to protect election materials, the voters and umpires,” he said, adding: “All we want is for the elections to come, go and Nigeria will remain intact.”
News Agency of Nigeria reports that the meeting was attended by all the Area Commanders, Divisional Police Officers as well as Heads of Departments and Operations, among other senior officers in the command.
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