LG election: Osun government rejects police advice

The Osun State Government has rejected the security advice from the Nigeria Police Force, which called for the suspension of the local government election scheduled for Saturday (today).

Blueprint reports that the Nigeria Police had on Friday called for the suspension of the election in the state due to possible security threats.

The government while reacting through a statement signed by Kolapo Alimi, the Commissioner for Information and Public Enlightenment on Friday, stated that the grounds for rejecting the advice were based on the rule of law and aversion to police partisanship.

Acknowledging the security advice, the state government revealed that it reviewed the advice and came to the conclusion that the proposal from the force headquarters was biased, partisan, and in contravention of democratic tenets.

The government said, “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 has breached best practices by its open support for the All Progressive 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 toga of a fair law agency. The negative role of the police to ignite the current face off made its advice a poison chocolate.

“Beyond the above, we also call the attention of the police to the court judgment of today. It contains three orders which affirm vacancies in Osun councils by authenticating the sacking of the APC council chieftains directed the police and other security agencies to provide security for the election and gave go ahead to fresh LG elections by Saturday 22nd.”

The government also accused the police of pursuing partisan interests rather than obeying court order and working against 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 rule of law, hence the decision of the state government to support the state electoral commission to conduct a credible free and fair elections 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,” it stated.