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The Nigerian Police
Force should be commended for reducing insecurity to the barest minimum
during the recent local government council poll in the Federal Capital
Territory, the Police Service Commission has said.

The commendation of
the force was contained in an interim report on the election released
by Chairman of the PSC Strategy Committee, Otive Igbuzor and made
available to our correspondent.

The commission also
commended the Federal Road Safety Commission, the Nigerian Security and
Civil Defence Corps and the Nigerian Prisons Service personnel for
ensuring a secured election atmosphere during the poll, conducted on
10th April, 2010.

The PSC said the
Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) duly accredited it to
monitor the conduct of police officers during the election as part of
its statutory responsibility of holding the police accountable.

The monitoring team
was made up of four persons led by Mr. Igbuzor. Other members were
PSC’s Director, Ben Iwambe; Deputy Director, Jibrin Saeed and Kingsley
Oghoro.

The team visited
three area councils namely: AMAC, Gwagwalada and Kuje, prior to which
it had given out three telephone numbers through which members of the
public could channel complaints on the performance of police personnel
with regard to the election to the commission.

Commendation for conduct

“The Police Service
Commission commends the Police officers that participated in the FCT
Area Council election for their professional conduct,” the report said.

“In particular, we
commend the FCT Police Commissioner, Mr. John Haruna for his prompt
response to deployment issues. The Commission will learn from the
monitoring of the gubernatorial election on 6th February, 2010 and the
FCT Area Council election on 10th April, 2010 to make a comprehensive
plan to monitor police conduct during the 2011 general elections.”

Some of the
observations of the commission include: security presence in all parts
of the FCT including the Nigeria Police, civil defence, FRSC and
Nigeria Prisons Service no police presence at the commencement of
distribution of materials.

The residents of FCT conducted themselves in very peaceful manner during the elections.

There were between three to twenty police officers in each polling unit visited, with support from other security agencies.

The police officers were generally courteous, approachable and
co-operative, with their name tags and numbers displayed on their
uniforms.