The Osun State Government has rejected the Nigeria Police Force’s security suggestion to suspend the local government poll slated for Saturday (today).
The Nigeria Police had on Friday called for the suspension of the election in the state based on credible intelligence obtained.
According to a statement published by the Force Public Relations Officer, Muyiwa Adejobi, credible intelligence suggests a high risk of violence and serious security threats if the state’s council election goes forward.
However, in a statement released late Friday by the Commissioner for Information and Public Enlightenment, Kolapo Alimi, the state administration declared that the reasons for rejecting the recommendation were based on the rule of law and an opposition to police partisanship.
The Osun state administration acknowledged the security advice, saying it had evaluated it and concluded that the suggestion from the force headquarters was biased, politicized, and violated democratic principles.
The statement reads, “The pretense of the service to be serving the public good while actually promoting the illegality of the APC reinforces our rejection of a Greek gift.
“From the beginning of this face-off, the police have breached best practices by their open support for the All Progressives Congress, a party that is pushing for illegality through a non-existing court order. The whole world knows how the police actively aided the APC to enforce a reinstatement order that was never issued by any court of law.
“A law enforcement agency has suddenly become a partisan wing of a political party, the APC, thereby losing all the toga of a fair law agency. The negative role of the police to ignite the current face-off made its advice a poisoned chocolate.
“Beyond the above, we also call the attention of the police to the court judgment of today. It contains three orders that affirm vacancies in Osun councils by authenticating the sacking of the APC council chieftains, directing the police and other security agencies to provide security for the election, and giving the go-ahead to fresh LG elections by Saturday, 22nd.”
The state government also accused the police of pursuing partisan interests rather than obeying court orders and maintaining the rule of law.
“Instead of the police to obey court order, the service is regrettably pursuing its partisan line by actively working against rule of law as espoused by today’s court ruling.
“If the police chose to disobey court orders, the Osun State government will not go against the rule of law, hence the decision of the state government to support the state electoral commission to conduct a credible, free, and fair election tomorrow.
“We thank the police for their advice. We respectfully turned down the request while we urged Osun voters to peacefully exercise their voting rights on Saturday.”
