The acting inspector general of police, Mohammed Adamu, has stated that police personnel on duty during the 2019 elections were constrained by the law which prevented them from bearing firearms around voting areas.
The IGP made the disclosure in Abuja at the Forum of Anti-corruption Situation Room organised by the Human and Environmental Development Agenda (HEDA) which held on Wednesday, April 10, The Nation reports.
Adamu, who was represented by AIG Peter Ogunyanwo, said the constraint made it impossible for officers on election duty to confront armed political thugs who attacked voters and disrupted voting.
The police chief further chided politicians; describing them as beneficiaries of electoral malpractices who lacked the required will and patriotism to enact the needed electoral reforms.
He said politicians also lacked nationalism and the fear of God in their conduct during elections.
Adamu lamented that measures prescribed by law to punish electoral offenders were not punitive enough to deter such offenders.
Citing Section 308 of the Constitution, which confers immunity from prosecution on sitting governors and their deputies when they commit offences, Adamu made allusions to Rivers and Kano states where the sitting governor and deputy governor could not be prosecuted after allegedly committing electoral infractions during the March 9 polls, as a result of their constitutional immunity.
He added: “In some cases, the law prescribes a fine of N40 as punishment for people caught with unlawful possession of firearms and other dangerous weapons. So where do we go from here.”
Adamu also chided voters who sold their votes to desperate politicians; stating that greed and stupidity were responsible for such actions.
He urged civil society groups and human rights organisations to mobilise other segments of the public to mount pressure on the National Assembly to ensure birth of electoral reforms that will prescribe stiffer penalties for electoral offenders.
Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that the deputy commissioner of police in charge of the Federal Special Anti-Robbery Squad (FSARS) in Bayelsa state, Kolawole Okunola, narrated how he was abducted by armed thugs during the 2019 presidential and National Assembly elections, brutally manhandled, and was at the point of being decapitated before rescue came.
A viral video had shown a terrified Okunola being dragged away by an angry mob.
Okunola, who was on election duties when the harrowing incident took place, said he was seriously assaulted, and was at the point of being decapitated when he was rescued.
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