How we achieved peaceful elections in Lagos -CP

In this interview, Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Kayode Aderanti, says police neutrality as well as synergy between security agencies ensured peaceful poll in Nigeria’s commer­cial city and Africa’s most populous city.

Excerpts:
How has it been, policing Lagos since your deployment to the com­mand?
So far, so good. The experience has been, let me put it this way, great and terrific in the sense that when we came on board we had a vision of what we wanted to do and what we wanted to achieve. And when you have a vision, you just have to work through it and make sure the vision is accomplished.
We came on board fully prepared for the task ahead; with the firm belief that by the time we have a very good partner­ship with the public, with the community that we are supposed to serve; that we will get things done easily in cracking down crimes and have a kind of action programme. We also identified different issues that we’ve got to address crime-wise and we devised a means of going through that.
We set up a special squad that is called ‘Tactical Operation Squad.’ We have another one called Crack Squad. We have these two units as another layer of security to support what the Rapid Respond Squad (RRS) has been doing. Through that way, we have been able to nip in the bud all these cases of people being harassed on the roads either when going to work in the morning or coming home in the night.
We also realized that there are lots of flash points in Lagos; the Oworonsoki end, the Adeniji Adele end and Mile 2, as well as other places that we have discov­ered people get harassed most of the time. What we did is to make sure that some of the officers were deployed to those areas; one, to give an assurance to the people of Lagos that their security is paramount to us; that we want them to get to their places of work in peace and on their way home, we want to assure them that get­ting home will be a kind of rollercoaster -peaceful.
Two, we believe that by the time we get these issues out in all these isolated secu­rity challenges, we can get the economy rolling in Lagos. What we are after is to support, in every conceivable way, the prosperity that is already in Lagos. If we make efforts to support the prosperity through implanting a comprehensive secu­rity arrangement, it is a win-win situation because by the time the companies are encouraged to employ more of our youths, we have less people as miscreants on the streets and through that we will be able to eliminate all these hooliganism, cultism, thuggery and all these problems associ­ated with a mega city like Lagos. When we talk of a city that is having the biggest economy in Africa, we should know all the challenges. We know the population of Lagos, it is close to 20 million. So, it is a kind of comprehensive strategy, combined together to address all these security chal­lenges that we have. That’s what we did.
Aside those challenges, are there challenges arising from police/pub­lic relationship?
To me, it has been fantastic. In fact, I used to joke with my PRO, that my mobile phone has turned to be a charge room. Do you know what I mean by that? Everybody wants to speak to me on this phone because whenever they have complaints, either 1a.m, 2a.m or any hour of the day, I will pick it and I will address all their concerns. So, it has been busy every time. The PRO’s lines too are there in the public domain. We allow people to reach us. That’s how we have been able to bridge all the communication gaps.
For we believe that for us to succeed as a team, we need to have the people. We cannot police Lagos State without people, without good intention. It is not pos­sible. And it is only when we remove that misperception between us and the public that we can have the kind of leeway to go into them. So, this has been our magic; very open, transparent and accountable to the people. It has been most helpful. I have an open office. There is no barrier here for whoever wants to see us.
You came to Lagos during elec­tion period, how were you able to achieve a peaceful election in the state in view of all the security challenges?
Ii is planning, planning and planning. The preparation that we had for the elec­tions was very comprehensive. We took a whole lot of things into consideration. Everything that we believed was germane to a successful election was looked into; such as trainings, logistics, welfare issues and so many other things. But let me put the credit to the good people of Lagos State; the voters. They were ready for the elections. They were prepared for it. I used to say that no matter our level of preparations, if we didn’t have the support of the voters, we are not going anywhere. We may have the best deployment of vehicles, boats, helicopters; it comes to nullity if the human aspect is neglected.
So, we had a kind of interactive meet­ing. We had stakeholders’ meeting three times, involving everybody; religious leaders, market men and women, road transport workers, artisans, everybody that we believed would be very helpful. We also didn’t allow the political parties to rest. The civil societies people were always here with us. We had a lot of real trainings that were anchored by the civil society groups. So they helped us to get all the outcomes of the trainings being cascaded down to the last people.
So, when you talk about trainings, we did it. When you talk about logistics, we did it. When you talk about welfare, which is very key but which we know is very germane to get out our officers on the streets; they were paid their allowances before the elections. So, they were just happy and ready to go. But the trainings helped a lot. We ensured comprehensive package of the trainings with printing of handy booklets on the rules and regula­tions on Election Day; dos and don’ts of police officers on election duty. We emphasized section 129 of the Electoral Act, which actually captures the offences on the Election Day. So, my officers were already aware of all these.
A day before the elections, we were already done with their deployment. At our disposal, we have about 500 patrol vehicles, two helicopters, 10 speedboats, five gunboats and 15 armoured person­nel carriers (APC) spread among the four area commands in the state. These are just parts of the logistics put in place and not just all. So, by the time it was Election Day, we were ready to go.
One other thing that could have ac­counted for this success, which I must not fail to address, is what I can call a kind of collaborative partnership with other sister agencies. I discovered that I need to work with all the security agencies like the Army, Air force, the Navy and civil defence commission, so I established a personal relationship with all their com­manders. We were friends and that was the first layer and these added together and then further translated to our profes­sional relationship.
So, on the Election Day, you see us together. Wherever I was, they were there with me. If there was anything for us to address, we jointly addressed it together. And the INEC’s Resident Electoral Com­missioner (REC), I don’t care, to me, I was ready to assist INEC to succeed in the state. That was what some people didn’t know. Whenever we saw any hiccup or any problem, instead of making noise, I would call and said ‘REC, this is what we observe here’ and he would say ‘thank you, my CP, I will address it.’ So, silently, that was how we worked together, all to ensure we move the state forward without making noise..post by expdonaloaded.blogspot.com
How do you see the complaints by some candidates, who lost out alleging that police colluded with the INEC to rig the election in favour of their opponents?
Not in Lagos State. Boldly, I can say not in Lagos State. Anybody that is saying that is just being mischievous and not charitable with the truth.
Was there any pressure on your command from the political class asking you to rig for one candidate or the other?
No. No. None. You will observe that nobody has so far castigated my command that we were for this party or for that party. We have perfect relationship with everybody across board. That is one of the attitudes. We have perfect relationship with all of them whether in PDP, APC, APGA or Labour party. My office was and is still open to all of them.
The IG did not ask us to work for any­body. He said we should remain apolitical; that we should behave as professionals so that everybody will be taken care of and nobody will entertain any fear. That is why I can call Bode George today; I can call Jimi Agbaje tomorrow. I can call Akinwumi Ambode and also call the gov­ernor. We have no personal relationship with anybody.
There is one germane issue bothering every Lagosian and this is about the occasional threat to public peace by cultists, especially along Ikorodu road. What are you doing to arrest the situation?
Don’t worry; we are on top of it. Now that the election is over, we are on top of it. It would fizzle out. Lagosians should not worry; we are on top of it.
What is your message to Lagosia­ns, aftermath of the election, as far as peace and security in the state are concerned?
Let me re-emphasize what I have been saying; that the people of Lagos should continue to support their police. They should see Lagos policeman as part of them, their friend. We want to remain their confidants; we want to remain ac­countable to them; we want to remain open to them. We want to do everything possible to ensure that they can sleep with their two eyes closed. We want to ensure that on their way in or way out of their residences they are secured. We want to ensure that we are able to respond to any crime situation that comes across our attention; that our response time will be reduced and it is going to be very robust. They should just continue to work to­gether with us and together we can make Lagos a very peaceful and vibrant state.