Police arrest 5 for printing voters’ cards

Posted by admin Elections 2011, Nigerian Police Friday, April 22nd, 2011

Five persons have been arrested by police detectives in Ede town for allegedly printing voters’ cards.
Besides, the state Commissioner of Police, Mr. Peter Gana, warned politicians contesting in the April 26 polls to eschew violence or face the wrath of the law.

Daily Sun gathered that police personnel from A Division, Ede had swooped on a computer centre situated along the Federal Polytechnic Road, Ede after a tip-off on the activities of the arrested persons.

The men were said to have been taken to the state Criminal Investigating Department (SCID), Osogbo for interrogation.
Speaking on the incident yesterday, the Director of Research and Strategy of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) in Osun State, Mr. Sunday Akere, confirmed the incident, saying the suspects might be working in collaboration with some unscrupulous officials of the electoral body.
The state Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), also confirmed the arrest of some people in Ede, on Wednesday but said they were ‘only photocopying the voters’ cards.’

Speaking during a stakeholder’s meeting between the joint security committee and politicians yesterday, Gana said any act of lawlessness would be dealt with, decisively. The CP pointed out that the State House of Assembly election was always turbulent in view of the large number of contestants in the election, saying his team had put in place, enough measures to ensure hitch-free election. He, therefore, called for the cooperation of the contestants.

“It is a known fact that the next and the final election is the most turbulent of all the elections. This is because candidates are close to the grassroot and are bound to involve the entire people of the state. But I want to assure you that we have put maximum security measures in place to ensure that it is conducted under a peaceful atmosphere,” Gana stated.

Accompanied by the heads of other security agencies and para-military organizations in the state, the police boss urged each of the political parties to warn their agents against any untoward act at the polling centres. In a chat with Daily Sun, Gana lamented that some politicians in the state have been using the bad terrain in the state to perpetrate electoral fraud, warning that his command would not treat anybody caught in the act with kid gloves.

“We need to emphasize that security is the concern of everybody. We want everybody to come on board and be committed to ensuring that we have a violence-free election come 26 April.
“We don’t have much challenge because we have been able to improve on our strategies from one election to the other. We have a little bit of challenges in the area where we have bad terrains. People exploit bad terrains to go and possibly print ballot papers. We had only one incident during the last election and we want to ensure that we don’t have any at all this time around”, he added..

-Sunwp_posts