BY Haleem Olatunji
Mohammed Adamu, inspector general of police, says the police knew that the elections in Bayelsa and Kogi states would be challenging.
He said this on Tuesday while addressing journalists after President Muhammadu Buhari held a meeting with security chiefs at the presidential villa, Abuja.
Adamu said all security personnel deployed by the police had special identification tags, unlike “fake security operatives sponsored by politicians”.
“During the elections, anybody you saw either in police uniform or military uniform without the tag given for the election, that person is not genuine police officer or military officer or he was not on official duty,” he said.
“Because, we were aware of the fact that or we were told that some politicians were going to sew police and military uniforms, so we devised some other means of identifying those that were on election duty. We gave them tags. We recruited and trained them before the elections to play by the rule, be professional, work within where you are posted and not beyond.”
Adamu said the tags were created to distinguish the real policemen from fake security operatives.
“Now, when you get the information and you did your assessment and you did your plan, the bad guys are also planning, and the people we are dealing with here are politicians. So, for us to be able to distinguish the bad from the good, one of the strategies was to create a situation that will enable us identify the good ones, genuine personnel.
“Then anyone without, is a bad guy and then we pick him. They came out as they planned but then we made some arrests. We left some personnel behind who will get information from the opponent that you didn’t get.”
He said investigation is ongoing to arrest other fake security personnel as well as persons who disrupted the elections in both states.
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