Security has been beefed up in Offa Local Government Area of Kwara, ahead of Saturday’s local government re-run election, the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports.
A NAN correspondent, who visited the council area on Friday, reports that police patrol vehicles were sighted moving round every nook and cranny of the town.
The atmosphere, however, remained tense as the two leading parties in the area, PDP and APC, rounded off their campaigns.
Mr Yerima Gana, the Kwara State Commandant of Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, said he would deploy 600 personnel to the council for the poll.
Gana disclosed this when he paid a visit to the Offa office of the Kwara State Independent Electoral Commission (KWASIEC) on Friday.
He expressed the command’s preparedness to support other law enforcement agencies to ensure a peaceful, free and fair election in Offa.
In his remarks, the KWASIEC chairman, Abdulrahman Ajidagba, thanked the commandant for the support and expressed the commission’s readiness for a peaceful poll.
Ajidagba said 284 adhoc staff had been engaged for the conduct of the re-run election in the council.
Meanwhile, the Olofa of Offa, Oba Mufutau Gbadamosi, has appealed to the people to be law abiding and embrace peace to achieve a peaceful election.
The traditional ruler, in a message to the people, noted that the community was in dire need of peaceful co-existence in reinvigorating the community’s economy.
“What we need now is peace and nothing but absolute peace.
“We should, as a community, live in harmonious relationship and embrace peaceful coexistence for even development of our community.
“I want to appeal to the political class to embrace peace and avoid do-or-die politics in the interest of the people,” Gbadamosi said.
