Seeking to ensure a hitch-free gubernatorial election in Sokoto State on 10 March, 2012, the state police commissioner, Baba Adisa Bolanta, recently held a meeting with the leaders of political parties in the state. Bello Gusau reports the trading of blames by the political leaders on issues of thuggery and regulation of the electoral processes.IT is generally believed that the majority of Nigerian politicians lack the will-power to imbibe the spirit of good sportsmanship. Poor officiating on the part of the authorities saddled with the responsibility to conduct election and poor enforcement of the rules of the game by security agencies are some of the main problems identified in the electoral process. Another factor is the do-or-die posture of politicians towards winning election.Thus, the fear of lack of partiality expressed by the opposition parties dominated the recent meeting between the Sokoto State Commissioner of Police, Mr Baba Adisa Bolanta, and the leadership of political parties in the state held at the conference room of the Police Officers' mess, Sokoto, recently.In his opening remarks, Bolanta said the meeting was an interactive session between the state police command and the politicians on how to ensure a hitch-free electioneering towards the 10 March, 2012 gubernatorial election in the state.The police chief admonished the politicians to borrow a leaf from their counterparts in Europe who try to win support of the electorate by way of articulation of ideas. As the election draws closer, he advised them to shun provocative statements and acts that could breach peace in the state and lamented the practice by some politicians who he said were in the habit of tearing the campaign posters of their opponents. He also cautioned the politicians against patronising the services of thugs in their campaign activities, saying that his approach to the issue of thugs was that as soon he found them, he would remove them from circulation.However, the meeting assumed a different dimension when members of opposition parties in the state started lamenting the attitude of security operatives towards them during electioneering and election proper.Speaking, the state organising secretary, Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Alhaji Abubakar Kantoma, said that there were similar meetings held between politicians and past commissioners of police in the state during previous elections, but that the advice given to the politicians were often ignored.Kantoma said the failure by leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to honour the police commissioner's invitation to attend the meeting was a big blow to the quest by the police to ensure a hitch-free election in the state, adding that it potrayed the possibility of their thinking of being covered by the police.He said this was because all the political crises taking place in the state at the moment were happening within the ruling party whose supporters, he alleged, were busy tearing the campaign posters of two of their gubernatorial aspirants.The ACN chieftain further stated that the two PDP gubernatorial candidates had filled all available space in Sokoto metropolis with their campaign posters, wondering what would become of the state in terms of peaceful electioneering by the time gubernatorial aspirants of all the registered political parties in the state started pasting their campaign posters.Another speaker at the parley, the deputy gubernatorial candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), Alhaji Ibrahim Magaji Gusau, said if the state police commissioner had heeded the advice he gave him in a letter he wrote him on September, there would not have been political crisis in the state. He said he drew Bolanta's attention to the guideline issued by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) that campaigns should not start until 3 January, 2012. Gusau reasoned that if the police had acted fast on the INEC guideline, there would not have been crisis within the ruling PDP over pasting of campaign posters.He said it was the thugs employed by the PDP gubernatorial aspirants that were tearing the campaign posters of the opposition aspirants, adding that he and all the politicians in the meeting knew all the political thugs in the state and could volunteer to give their names to the police chief to incarcerate them so that peace could reign throughout the electioneering period in the state. He, however, alleged that the problem with the police in the state was that even if they arrested thugs, the sponsors of the thugs would go and secure their release immediately.Gusau further alleged that, through the discriminate pasting of posters by the ruling PDP in the state, there was an inscription on the fence of the state police command which reads 'Alu For Life' written in support of the state governor, Alhaji Aliyu Magatakarda Wamakko. He concluded by saying that the only way the police could ensure peaceful elections in the state was by being an impartial arbiter to all the political parties in the state.Taking his turn, the acting state campaign coordinator for Senator Abubakar Umar Gada's gubernatorial aspiration and former PDP chairman in Wurno Local Government Area, Alhaji Musa Maiyadi, lamented that two thugs were caught removing Senator Gada's posters in Wurno but when they were detained by the police, the incumbent chairman of the council allegedly got them released. He further alleged that in the Gandi District of Wurno, as the pro-Gada supporters were pasting his posters, a group of the governor's supporters came behind them and started removing the posters and when he reported the matter to the police station, no action was taken.Responding to the complaints, the CP assured the politicians of the readiness of the Sokoto State police command to protect all of them, as well as the entire people of Sokoto, saying the problem with Nigerian politicians was that they were bad losers.However, on the issue of the whereabouts of thugs, he said it was not enough for the police to effect arrests where no offence was committed. He said if the politicians saw any thug perpetrating trouble or about to do so, they should inform the police, assuring that the police would act upon the infromation and put such suspects under surveillance.Bolanta said he was not aware of the claim by the CPC deputy gubernatorial candidate on the pro-Wamakko inscriptions on the police command's fence, and immediately directed his officers and men to check whether it was true with a view redressing the situation. He assured them that the police had no party other than the Nigeria Police.On the issue of the election guidelines, the commissioner of police said the INEC, rather than the police, was the regulatory body that was empowered by law to regulate the activities of political parties, vis--vis campaigns and selection of party candidates. He however promising that INEC would be involved in subsequent meetings to be held between him and members of political parties so as to put things right.Speaking on the refusal of the PDP to attend the meeting, the Sokoto police boss said he would go through the attendance sheet to see the political parties that did not attend the meeting, with a view to transmitting to them what transpired at the meeting and urging them to attend future meetings.However, responding to a question asked by Nigerian Tribune on the claims raised at the meeting, the Public Relations Officer (PRO) INEC Sokoto, Alhaji Mohammed Musa Sokoto, said no invitation was extended to the commission for the meeting. He said the state INEC chairman, in company of his officials, had paid a courtesy call on the commissioner of police a day before the meeting.
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