Lagos state Commissioner of Police Idowu Owohunwa dismisses claims of widespread cases of voter suppression and violence in Lagos guber election (video)

The Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Idowu Owohunwa, has dismissed reviews of widespread acts of violence and voter suppression within the state governorship election held on Saturday, March 18.

In an interview with Channels TV, Owohunwa confirmed the assaults on voters and electoral officers recorded at some Lagos polling models, saying, “It’s true that we’ve recorded situations of violence in some areas throughout the state.” He nevertheless added that the incidents have been “not as widespread as to have an effect on the overall dynamics of the method”.

 In accordance with him, a lot of the situations have been “correctly responded to by the police as a result of we anticipated them”.

When requested if the command had anticipated the violence, he stated, “Sure, in some situations. As safety practitioners, if you plan operations of this nature, you need to anticipate that some parts will need to grow to be adversaries within the course of. We anticipated after which we built-in that into our normal operational plan and we activated that protocol successfully on this occasion. Most of these breaches, the police have been in a position to reply promptly.”

Owohunwa additionally responded to the claims accompanying some viral movies of alleged incidents of poll field snatching.

Relating to a video of voters supposedly overpowering a younger man alleged to have snatched a poll field, the police commissioner stated

“That in itself is prohibited; two wrongs can not make a proper.”

He added that opposite to data on social media, the younger man is alive, after he was rescued by the police and different safety companies and that the suspected electoral offender was receiving medical consideration.

 “He’s secure; he’s not lifeless,” Owohunwa stated

The CP famous that the police have been compiling circumstances throughout the purview, saying “numerous arrests” and “recoveries” had been made.

“In most of these circumstances of poll field snatching, we recovered just about all of the poll packing containers” he stated

Talking on reviews of disenfranchisement in Eti-Osa Native Authorities Space (LGA), Owohunwa acknowledged that the realm had not offered a significant problem.

“Quite, the place now we have points now, I believe, is round VGC [Victoria Garden City], particularly anyway, and the problem needed to do extra with the relocation of the polling models from the throughout the property to a location exterior the gate,” he stated.

 

“That falls throughout the mandate of INEC, and when my consideration was drawn to it, I drew the eye of the REC to the event. As we communicate, he has personally gone to the placement and is making an attempt to interact the voters, in order that they’ll discover a widespread floor.”

Watch a video of him talking beneath