The Inspector General of Police Usman Alkali Baba, has said that the security agencies are taking swift steps to change the disturbing narrative about insecurity before the 2023 polls.
He said they the agencies are preoccupied with the task of ensuring that the election time is adhered to by the creation of a conducive atmosphere for voting to take place.
The IGP made the comment on Thursday while fielding questions from State House Correspondents shortly after the National Security Council presided over by the President.
The IGP was reacting to the fears expressed by the Indepedent National Electoral Commission over the election in the face of the escalating security situation in parts of the country.
He said that the security agencies are assessing the security situation ahead of elections in the country including the staggered ones in Ekiti and Osun states.
“The issue of general election, we are very conscious of the fact that even before the general election, we have a staggerered election that is coming up in the next maybe eight weeks. The issue of Osun and Ekiti.
“The service chiefs and the heads of security agencies are members of the Interagency Consultative Forum on the elections.
“We are assessing the security situation and we are hopeful and we believe the narrative will change for the better in terms of securing the country, to enable us to conduct the general election and even the staggered elections.
“I am aware INEC has expressed its fears and so forth. But we are also working towards changing the narrative within the quickest possible means to ensure that the national timetable on election duties are adhered to by our combined efforts to bring sanity to bear and make a level playing ground for all members of the public to exercise their franchise.” He said
When asked to respond on the nagging issue of inadequate deployment of police resources to known troubled areas , he said “deployment should not be based on either size or number of persons or threat assessment in a place.
“It is all about how you police a particular place based on the number of people you have, based on your ability to also gather that manpower. “