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Akinwande Soji-Ojo
The Police Service Commission (PSC) has replaced the former Director of Civil Society Organisations directorate of the All Progressives Congress Presidential Campaign Council (APC PCC), Hajiya Naja’atu Muhammad, as one of the coordinators that will supervise conduct of police officers during forthcoming general elections.
Her removal came few hours after the APC campaign council protested her inclusion among 45 coordinators who will monitor the conduct of police officers on election duty.
The commission had earlier assigned Muhammad as one of the coordinators who would supervise the conduct of police officers, but the Director, Public Affairs and spokesperson of the APC campaign council, Festus Keyamo, in a statement on Monday, said she should be withdrawn immediately.
In the statement, Keyamo said that the appointment is not only “callous, it is insensitive, openly confrontational and consequently unacceptable by the Tinubu/Shettima Presidential Campaign Council.”
Reacting, PSC said it had asked a former Assistant Inspector-General of Police, Bawa Lawal (rtd), who is from the same geopolitical zone with Muhammad to take over the coordination of the monitoring of police officers conduct in the zone.
The commission’s spokesperson, Ikechukwu Ani, said that the commission will always be sensitive to the wishes of Nigerians and will continue to contribute it’s quota to the sustenance of the nation’s democracy.
“The Commission wishes to state with all sense of responsibility that its commissioners representing different geopolitical zones have always supervised assignments of the commission in the geopolitical zones they represent. It was the same with the present national assignment.
“It wishes to restate its commitment to a free and fair 2023 elections where the Police as the lead agency in internal security which includes election policing will discharge its duties according to the dictates of the law,” he said.