12,000 Policemen Deployed to Kaduna for elections

The Nigeria Police have deployed about 12,000 conventional and mobile personnel to Kaduna State for the Saturday Presidential and National Assembly elections.

The Commissioner of Police in Kaduna State, Ahmad Abdurahman, at a media interaction in his office on the security arrangement for the election, said that the police personnel will be deployed to all polling units across the 23 local government areas and identified flash-points in the state. He stated that the Police will be assisted by other security agencies like the Immigration, Civil Defence and Federal Road Safety Corps.

The Commissioner warned members of the vigilante services to stay away from polling units, saying that anybody caught will be arrested in accordance with the law.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in the state, said the commission has concluded redistribution of voting materials across the 23 local government areas of the state after their withdrawal following the postponement of the February 16 election.

The Resident Electoral Commissioner, Abdullahi Kaugama, had said that all logistics challenges have been sorted out except for some mix up of voting materials in four local government areas of Kachia, Kaduna North, Birnin Gwari and Chikun.

On the safety of the members of the National Youth Service Corps who are taking part in the conduct of the election, Kaugama says none of them will be deployed to crisis prone areas like Birnin Gwari and Kajuru local government areas where there have been security issues before now.