The Nigeria Police Force yesterday defended its deployment of 30,000 personnel for Saturday’s governorship election.
The police said the figure deployed is imperative, considering the threats and negative utterances made by some stakeholders ahead of the election.
It also said the presence of police would enable electorates go out and cast their votes without fear.
This was disclosed by its spokesman, Jimoh Moshood, in a TV show on monitored by The Nation.
Moshood also denied knowledge of the alleged forgery of National Youth Service Corp (NYSC) exemption certificate by the Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun.
He advised anyone with complaint on the matter to go to the nearest police station to report.
On why the police is deploying such a huge number of personnel, he said: “I want to say that it is not peculiar to Ekiti. In Edo we deployed 25,000 personnel, in Ondo we deployed 26,000 personnel and in Anambra, the same 26,000 was deployed. We have carried out threat analysis and assessment throughout Ekiti State and we have so much confidence in our personnel to deliver appropriately and to create an enabling environment for people to come out and vote.
“If you watch in recent times, the utterances of stakeholders who call themselves leaders in Ekiti and other areas, you would discover that they have been inciting and instigating their followers. We want people to have the confidence that the police is capable of securing them.
“We also want them to be free to come out and vote, because by the time you start issuing inciting statements and threats to people, definitely it may discourage from people coming out to exercise their franchise.
“So we want the will of people to carry the day and that is why the deployment is done.”