Over 1,000 police deployed in Anambra ahead of supplementary poll

Over 1,000 officers will be deployed for the supplementary election in Anambra state billed to hold in Ihiala Local Government Area on Tuesday, the State Commissioner of Police, Echeng Echeng, disclosed.

It would be recalled that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), had  earlier suspended the collation of results for the State’s governorship poll after elections did not hold in Ihiala on Saturday.

The police chief, Echeng, who featured on Channels Television’s Politics Today, assured that the force was prepared to safeguard the good citizens of the state, saying that “all hands are on deck”.

He said, “We are deploying more than a thousand to the polling booths. This makes an average of 3, 4, they are going to be complemented by other security agencies”.

“All the tactical teams, Police Mobile Force (PMF) teams, we have pushed enough into Ihiala because we want to make sure that at every point that we anticipate a problem, we dominate the area. For whoever wants to come out tomorrow will have his own story to tell”, he continued.

The Commissioner of Police added that the Force would impose curfew across Ihiala Local Government Area to avoid mayhem.

He explained that restriction of movement would commence by 11:55 pm on Monday and end at 11:55 pm on Tuesday.

“The firm standard applies to Ihiala, we are going to shut down from 11:55 pm today and open up at 11:55 pm tomorrow.

“There were reasons why that shut down had to be. It had to take care of entry and exit points, people not being allowed to come in and cause any problem. So we are going to do what exactly we did with the whole state, this time around restricted to Ihiala alone.”

Reacting to the claim by INEC that inadequate security prevented electoral officials from conducting polls in Ihiala, the police boss, who maintained that there was enough presence of security officials in the local council, noted that additional operatives have already been deployed to the affected local government.