By Ibrahim Kado
The Cleen Foundation and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), have begun a five-day capacity building workshop for Divisional Police Officers (DPOs) in the North-East on election security.
Mr Gad Peter, Executive Director of the foundation, said at the opening of the workshop on Monday in Yola that adequate security was critical to successful conduct of the elections.
Peter, represented by the Programme Officer, Mr Ebere Mbaegbu said the training focused on crowd control within the broader context of public order management during elections.
He said it would also promote the capacity and awareness of the police personnel in the protection and preservation of human rights and dignity of Nigerians during the elections.
“The sessions will, therefore, enhance the capacity of Nigeria Police Force in identifying risk, threats and putting in place the appropriate response measures.
“It will also ensure risk identification and assessment gap in security measures, eternal and external threats, information protection as well as contingency planning,” Peter said.
According to him, the programme will check some of the challenges experienced during the 2019 general elections in the country.
In his remarks, the Commissioner of Police in Adamawa, Sikiru Akande said that the training was apt and very significant in coordinating the electioneering process.
Akande, represented by the Command’s spokesperson, SP Suleiman Nguroje, said the training would make a difference in the management of security during the 2023 general elections.
He said that the participants were expected to step down the training to other personnel and called on them to actively participate, to achieve the objectives of the training.
A resource person, retired Deputy Inspector of Police, Joshua Habila, urged the participants to ensure that the elections of 2023 would be different in terms of security.
He said that elections in Nigeria had been challenging as people hardly obey rules and regulations.
“With this programme, we want to set the pace and make Nigeria as the big brother in Africa to lead in terms of free, fair and credible elections,” Habila said.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the participants were drawn from Adamawa, Borno, Bauchi, Gombe, Taraba and Yobe states. (NAN)