APC senator rejects 30,000 policemen for Ekiti poll

Deputy Senate Leader Bala Ibn Na’Allah, yesterday, said 30,000 policemen reportedly deployed to Ekiti State for the governorship election was unacceptable.

Na’Allah (APC, Kebbi), said that large number of policemen should not have been deployed for an election when the authorities could not deploy 10,000 policemen to secure the lives of people in Zamfara State.

The senator, who was speaking while leading the debate on his bill that sought to repeal the Police Act and re-enact the Police Reform, said such action was not part of the APC manifesto.

“Thirty-thousand policemen to supervise an election in Ekiti while they could not mobilise 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.

“We would continue to tell the people that we will not 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 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 Nigeria Police,” he said.

Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu, who presided over yesterday’s plenary, also expressed concern about the matter.

“I am also worried about the fact that we have 30,000 policemen you can deploy in a state for election, and the other issue here is the sincerity in deploying 30,000 policemen and it would ensure security of lives and properties, there is no problem with that.

“But sometimes, some of this statistics are misleading. It only goes to count when allowances are to be paid and nobody is sure how many people actually participated. Meanwhile, the provision we made for that number that is my warning here. But if we have 30,000 policemen that we can deploy and pay them and it can be accounted for, I have no problem with that anyway,” Ekweremadu said.