•IG briefs Buhari, promises to appear before Senate
From Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja
President Muhammadu Buhari on Friday met with the Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris to discuss the security situation in the country especially the preparation ahead of the November 18 elections in Anambra.
Speaking to State House Correspondents after a closed door meeting with the President, the IG who said the issue of kidnapping also topped the agenda said, about 21,000 police officers are to be deployed for the Anambra elections to provide adequate security. He said “Obviously I am here as usual to discuss with the Commander in Chief on the security challenges we are having and how we will face these security challenges adequately.
“The security challenges are obvious. You know we are having elections in Anambra state and we are having challenges in various parts of the country especially some of these issues of kidnapping and these are things I discussed with the President and the measures taken to address it squarely.
“For the Anambra election, obviously we are deploring a lot of police officers, about 21,000 police officers to be able to provide adequate security for the Anambra election. We are deploying our water boats to take care of the water ways, we are deploring our helicopters to take care of the aerial surveillance and we are deploying our conventional police men and special police units to take care of situations on ground and by the grace of God we are going to have a successful and peaceful elections in Anambra state.”
Also speaking on the security situation on Kaduna-Abuja highway, the IG said, “Kaduna-Abuja road as you rightly observed, we have deplored our special unit there and we have arrested several of these kidnappers and I want to appreciate the effort of the National Assembly for providing sort of a death penalty for suspects arrested involved in some of these cases of kidnapping. I’m sure that in few weeks time we are going to have drastic fall in the report of some of these incidences of kidnapping in those areas because of the punishment that has been put in place by the National Assembly.”
Asked when the suspects will be charged to court, Idris said, “We are taking them to court everyday, presently we have over 3000 suspects in the various police stations all over the country and we are taking them to court, recently I set up a task force to sort of streamline or scrutinize these cases so that we have speedy trial of some of these suspects.”
Asked when he will honour the summon by the Senate, he said, “these are legal issues, we are discussing with our legal team. Obviously, if there is need, we are going to appear for the sake of having respect for the Senate, I will appear before them.”