THE Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Police Command said there would be a restriction of movement on Saturday due to the scheduled council elections.
This was disclosed in a statement by the FCT Police Public Relations Officer Josephine Adeh on Thursday.
Adeh said the restriction, which will be between midnight of Friday to 4 p.m. on Saturday, would enable security agencies to conduct due diligence in ensuring a free and fair election.
“The restriction em-placed between the period of 12mid night – 4 pm of the said date was put in place to enable the Police in a concerted effort with other sister agencies to do due diligence in the discharge of their duties as ensuring a free and fair Election thereby totally paralyzing any form of threat emergence and creating a vote worthy atmosphere for voters and the electorates at large to perform their civic right and obligation,” she said.
However, Adeh noted that essential workers and students scheduled to write the West African Examination Council (WAEC) examination are exempted from the restriction.
She said the Commissioner of Police FCT Command Babaji Sunday urged residents to exercise their voting rights without the fear of harassment or molestation of any kind.
“He, however, noted that the restriction only bears an exception for essential workers and Students who were coincidentally scheduled to write a nationwide WAEC examination, stressing emphatically that parties found otherwise wanting will be made to face the wrath of the law,” the statement read.
Also, the FCT Police Command said it had created nine sector re-enforcement teams comprising the police and other sister agencies to cater to an emergency during the elections.
Adeh said the sectored reinforcement team is independent and should not be confused with the standard deployment of two unarmed police personnel at each polling unit across the state as required by standard best practices.
The FCT polls are scheduled to hold on Saturday across the Abaji, Abuja Municipal, Bwari, Gwagwalada, Kuje and Kwali area councils.
Lukman Abolade is an Investigative reporter with The ICIR. Reach out to him via [email protected], on twitter @AboladeLAA and FB @Correction94