The Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Idowu Owohunwa, has disclosed the command has arrested 45 suspected electoral offenders and recorded 54 major cases across the 13,325 polling units in the state during the just-concluded general elections.
Owohunwa made the revelation when he hosted strategic commanders in Lagos State Police Command at police officers’ mess, Ikeja, Lagos to undertake a postmortem of the 2023 elections in Lagos State.
He said that 2,870 Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs) were recovered in the course of police election security operations from various electoral offenders.
Other items recovered included seven weapons of violence, including two firearms, 28 snatched ballot boxes, one Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machines and one Point of Sale (PoS) machine deployed for vote buying.
Owohunwa said, “Investigations into the remaining electoral offences have reached advanced stages and as soon as they are concluded, they will be similarly processed for prosecution…”
“To complement this initiative, all Area Commanders and Divisional Police Officers are charged to reinvigorate their convoy patrol, intelligence-led operations, and visibility policing.
“To complement this initiative, all Area Commanders and Divisional Police Officers are charged to reinvigorate their convoy patrol, intelligence-led operations, and visibility policing”, he said.
He said the move that will emphasize physical deployment of police personnel and operational assets to police the public space, adding that Armchair DPOs or Area Commanders shall not be tolerated.
