ZIK GBEMRE SPEAKS ON OSUN GUBER: DEPLOYMENT OF 21,000 POLICE OFFICERS ONLY EXPOSES NIGERIA’S SYSTEMIC FAILURE

Did all the deployment to Ekiti change anything?

I can’t comprehend the prominence the media is giving to the deployment of 21,000 police officers by the Inspector General of Police (IGP) to watch over an isolated governorship election in Osun state.

For me, there is nothing to sheer or celebrate about such oddity. If anything, it only goes to prove that Nigeria’s democracy is on a continuous retrogression. It is further a confirmation that relevance authorities do not have confidence in the process.

We keep moving one step forward, many backward. If not, what would 21,000 policemen be needed in an election of one state? Funny enough even if you deploy the entire Nigerian Police Force, joined by the military and all other security agencies, the results we get still always reflect myriads of irregularities in the election process that they were meant to check.

Look all the security deployments to recent Ekiti governorship polls. Their impacts were not felt one bit. With their presence, politicians still did their usual vote buying, induced violence and sundry electoral malpractices.

So, everytime we keep hearing this report of massive deployments of police officers from the IG, yet every avoidable electoral misconduct happens right under their presence. At the end of the day, we hear of thugs snatching electoral materials, vote buying, violent rivalry clashes and all that.

Yet, hardly any political thug or sponsor get prosecuted and jailed by court. Instead, what you hear are viral videos or loud allegations of security operatives aiding politicians to rig elections. So, posting one million police officers and soldiers to Osun won’t change anything in my opinion.

Nigeria must look at the root causes of election irregularities, including poverty to the extent that a voter can sell his ballot for N500. We must ensure that qualified persons are nominated to contest election. Above all, there must be consequence action against any stakeholder, including INEC, candidates, voters, security operatives caught in malpractices.

As long as people keep going away with brazen malpractices during elections, posting huge security operatives to watch over elections is mere wastefulness and it won’t guarantee free and fair elections.

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