The Lagos State Police Command has said more than 20 political thugs have been arrested in connection with cases of electoral violence and ballot box snatching recorded in parts of the state during Saturday’s presidential and national assembly elections.
The spokesman for the Lagos State Police Command, Benjamin Hundeyin disclosed this on Sunday in an interview with Channel Television.
“We had issues in Surulere, we had issues in Oshodi, we also had issues in Oke-Afa. We are still collating. So far, we have over 20 political thugs arrested and we also have over 10 polling units where these issues occurred,” Hundeyin said.
He said the police responded to hundreds of distress calls across the 13,325 polling units in Lagos, noting that “the control room was very busy yesterday (Saturday).”
He, however, expressed disappointment that Nigerians were not appreciative of the efforts of the Lagos command in curbing electoral violence in a few areas.
“It wasn’t like armed men were not there; they were there but we kept moving men around as the need arose,” the police spokesman explained.
“We have 13,325 polling units in Lagos State. We had distress calls in hundreds of them and we responded swiftly and restored the sanctity of the elections.
“Unfortunately, people don’t want to talk about it because they feel the police are doing their job. So, less than 50 areas where we had issues is what everybody is talking about which is okay because that is the news.
“We had many instances where armed men responded on time. We have one or two in Mafoluku.”
In other news, the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Mahmood Yakubu has said the commission has again met with security agencies like the Nigeria Police Force, among others to strengthen security at polling units where violence was recorded on February 25 ahead of the March 11 governorship and states’ house of assembly polls.
