The Niger State Commissioner of Police, Adamu Abdullahi Elleman, has warned anyone with the intention to cause trouble during the Niger State local government elections to have a rethink, as security agencies will not hesitate to clamp down on such persons.
In line with this, the Commissioner of Police has also ordered the deployment of three Deputy Commissioners of Police to the three senatorial districts in the State for election security monitoring and supervision.
This is in addition to massive deployment of Police personnel and operational assets including tactical teams such as 12pmf, 61pmf, Counter terrorism unit (CTU), EOD-CBRN, Special protection unit (SPU), Tactical support team (TST), Crack squad, and Anti-kidnapping unit, as well as other security agencies under the Inter-Agency Consultative Committee on Election Security (ICCES) to provide security coverage at all the 4,950 polling units and 274 wards of the 25LGAs across the state.
Elleman then urged all political parties to play by the rules while reiterating the Command’s readiness to provide adequate security for a peaceful and credible election.
He added that enforcement of vehicular movement restriction shall also commence from 6am-6pm on the Election Day, except officials on essential duties.
In a related development, journalists and media practitioners were trained on effective and ethical election reporting by LinaTV in collaboration with Media Mentors Network with support from the Niger State Independent Electoral Commission (NSIEC).
Representative of the Commissioner of Police, Simon Lounge, said the training was timely, as they expect the media and journalists to report what is on ground and not sensationalise the elections.
The Chief Executive Officer of LinaTV, Celine Alkali said there was need for the training, as several journalists across media organisations in the state would be covering such type of elections for the first time.
The facilitators, Mr Dan Amasigha took the journalists on media responsibilities and ethical considerations in reporting elections, Alhaji Dantala took a session on principles of effective election reporting and understanding the electoral process while Justina Asishana took a session on fact-checking and combating misinformation during elections.