Buhari presides over pre-election security council meeting
..Commissions Security Equipment
President Muhammadu Buhari on Wednesday presided over the national security council meeting at the presidential villa, Abuja.
The agenda of the meeting is to review the security situation in the country ahead of the general election.
The national security council advises the president on public security issues.
Prior to the commencement of the meeting, the president launched security equipment donated by the Coalition Against COVID-19 (CACOVID).
The presidential and national assembly elections are expected to take place on Saturday, February 25.
Usman Baba, the inspector-general of police (IGP), had recently said 404,106 security operatives will be mobilised for the election.
Baba said the security operatives will include officers of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF), Federal Road Service Corps (FRSC), Nigerian Correctional Service (NCoS), National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), and Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
“From INEC’s records, there exist 176,846 polling units in the 8,809 wards of the 36 states and the federal capital territory, which elections will be conducted,” he had said.
“The Nigeria police, with support from other security agencies, have perfected plans to deploy in a coordinated and collaborated manner to cover all locations.
“The deployment will cover the national collation centre in Abuja as well as other collation centres across the states of the federation, FCT, and 774 LGAs.
“In view of the above, the Nigeria police will deploy 310,973 personnel for election security operations. The manpower required for this exercise will be completed by the military and other security agencies.
“In this regard, aside from the military and DSS, other security agencies would contribute a total of 93,495 personnel for the election security operations.
“This includes Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps who will deploy 51,000 personnel; FRSC, 21,000; Nigerian Correctional Service, 11,336; NDLEA, 9,447; EFCC, 350, totalling 404,106.”
Meanwhile, the meeting which has all security chiefs in attendance, comes barely two days before the general elections and is expected to review the current security situation in Nigeria.
Before the meeting, the President presided over the launch of security equipment donated by the Coalition Against Covid-19 (CACOVID) at the Council Chambers, including a 350 state-of the-art security vehicles and gadgets for use by law enforcement agencies in Abuja and Lagos ahead of the 2023 elections.
The coalition of Private Sector Against Covid-19, (CACOVID) which procured the security equipment, is a conception of a number of eminent Nigerian industrialists, including Alhaji Aliko Dangote and Mr Herbert Wigwe as well as the Governor of the Central Bank, who were all physically present, to primarily lend support to the Federal Government’s fight against insecurity.
The items include; One hundred units of 14 tons Tata Trucks, One Hundred units of 12 tons Tata trucks, One Hundred and six units of Toyota Vans, Sixty four units of Nissan Navara vans, Thirteen thousand Ballistic Vests, Twenty Six thousand Ballistic Plates as well as Thirteen thousand Ballistic Helmets.
It would be recalled that CACOVID designed a mechanism to pool funds voluntarily from an alliance that included more than 100 private sector institutions, organisations, banks, and individuals and in its first tranche of pools, almost 40 billion naira was Collected, out of which about 17 billion naira was applied to speedily build Isolation Centres, acquire various medical equipment and gears, facilitate vaccine delivery, and urgently procure vital Covid-19 medications nationwide.
