"We Are Ready For The General Elections" - Security Chiefs

The nation’s Service Chiefs, yesterday, disclosed that the military was ready for the general elections billed to begin on the 14th of this month with the Presidential and National Assembly elections.
The military brass, who expressed their preparedness at the National Peace Committee for
the 2015 elections meeting with representatives of different political parties in Abuja, revealed that all the logistic problems that had affected the 2011 elections had been resolved to ensure that the elections hold as scheduled.

According to the Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Adesola Amosun said; “We have commenced the airlift of the materials needed for the elections starting from Abuja. The whole spectrum of the elections would be involved. It was logistics problems that made us to postpone the election four years ago, it is not going to happen again, we are already ahead of the game.
“We have a lot of unmanned airports in Nigeria, we have already deployed our men, we are going to man those airports. So, should we have saboteurs planning to use any of those airfields, it will be difficult for them. We are going to block all those unmanned airfields. We have already deployed and set up our soldiers to man those airfields. Those are the areas we may have linkages, the airport security, we are already ahead of the game to man the airfields to stop those that will want to bring in illegal materials into the country.”

For the Chief of Defence Staff, Air Marshal Alex Badeh, he asserted that although the military was highly occupied with the insurgency in the north-east, they had capacity to take care of any act of violence before, during and after the election.
His words, “We are not directly involved in elections and
electioneering but before the elections, we will deploy our
personnel across the nation to assist civil powers and authority.
“During the elections, as we have done in other states, we also ensure that people are not used to go and cause trouble or mayhem after the elections and should there be any disturbances, we will assist the police.
“The military will deploy as much as we can across the nation. Even though we are busy in the north east, we also have capability across the nation.”
On his part, the Chief of Army Staff General Kenneth Minimah said, “We are aware of the need for security before, during and after the elections. We will deploy across the states of the federation, in areas we discover that have capacity for violence. We are prepared to ensure we have a peaceful
election. I appeal to politicians to obey the rules of the game and advise their followers to respect the laws of the land.
“As stipulated in the Electoral Act and the Constitution, no individual or groups should take the laws into their hands. We want the nation to have peace after this election.”
In his remarks, the Chairman of National Peace Committee for the 2015 elections, who is a former Head of State, General Abdulsalam Abubakar stated that Nigeria could not afford to experience the kind of electoral carnage that followed election process in some parts of the world.
He enjoined politicians to desist from making provocative statements that were capable of disrupting the nation’s peace.

“I have been involved in a lot of peace talks. It is sad when you go round Africa and see the kind of injuries inflicted on people as a result of electoral violence.
“We appeal to Nigerians to eschew violence. The contestants signed an accord to maintain peace; we demand that their followers maintain peace. The media has a herculean task to preach peace and avoid sensational reporting. We are not taking these threats lightly; we have noted the various utterances,” he stated.