Usman Baba Alkali, the Inspector General of Police (IGP), while addressing the recurring attacks on INEC offices and facilities on Friday, revealed that “the police is handicapped as most of the people arrested are connected to high places”.

The IGP said this through his representative, Dandaura Mustapha, the Deputy Inspector General (DIG), Department of Operations, while briefing an ad-hoc committee of the House of Representatives.

He said the police was understaffed, and needed more hands.

“We are not up to 400,000. We lack manpower. We need additional funding for recruitment. We lose personnel everyday and we need to replace,” he said.

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INEC reported on Friday that its facilities had recorded 50 attacks between 2019 and 2022, with the most recent attacks occurring in Imo, Enugu, Osun, Ogun, and Ebonyi states.

Mustapha claimed that the latest attacks on INEC offices were the work of politicians and secessionist organisations in the southeast and southwest.

“It is a well-known fact that in the southeast geopolitical zone, we have issues with secessionists – the IPOB and ESN. These groups are bent on stopping elections from taking place in the southeast,” he said.

“They have been attacking our personnel; they have been killing our personnel. They have been retrieving arms from members of the security agencies, not only the police – the military and other paramilitary organisations that are there.

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“In the southwest, we equally have the pro-Yoruba secessionists that are equally bent on succeeding and not allowing elections to take place in their areas, hence the attack on INEC in Osun and Ogun of recent. Those ones are there too, sponsored by politicians and other stakeholders.

“There is also an issue of failed and desperate politicians who are bent on stopping INEC from conducting this election. The failed politicians are those who could not come back through any political parties, and as far as they are concerned, let everything spoil, let everything scatter.

“They are using that opportunity to sponsor illiterate followers of the party and hoodlums to make sure that this general election does not hold and should [sic] not be successful.”

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He stated that the IGP held a meeting with political leaders and INEC representatives on November 17, where they agreed that political parties “should talk and work on their followers to desist from hooliganism”.

He also said that the IGP held a meeting on December 13 with operational officers of all security agencies and discussed measures to safeguard INEC facilities.

According to him, “the police is the lead agency in internal security and elections in general, and as a result, they are always at the receiving end”.

“Whatever happens, it is our responsibility to protect here and there,” he said.