Bisola David
The presidential candidate for the Accord Party, Prof. Christopher Imumolen, has requested the Federal Government to hire temporary security guards in order to prevent a security breakdown during the 2023 elections.
The Punch reported that in a statement released by his media office on Friday, he said that by hiring ad hoc security officers to supplement the current workforce, the top government could efficiently handle any security issues that might arise during the next general elections.
He asserted that extra hands would prevent cases of thuggery, voting box snatching, and assassinations of opponents in numerous flashpoints across the nation.
According to him, the only way to guarantee that there won’t be enough space for bad people to interfere with the elections in any way is through massive recruitment of ad-hoc security personnel to make up for the shortfall in the number of policemen and other operatives that are currently available.
It is not possible to have sufficient security coverage for the 176,000 voting places on election day, according to the numbers that are currently available, which put the number of security men at 350,000 across the country.
This shortage is something that evil individuals trying to sabotage the elections would be looking forward to taking advantage of and wreaking havoc like they have in years past.
He also stated that unsupervised polling places are a recipe for disaster, and that if poll workers are not secure, voting is unsafe and anything is possible.
“For this reason, I would like to recommend that ad hoc security staff be hired and trained immediately to help make up for the gap we currently have” he added.
In order to ensure smooth elections, he continued, “We should, as a matter of urgency, invite Nigerians who are patriotic and interested in seeing to the success of the impending elections to come forward and offer their services.”
