Ahead of Saturday’s Katsina State Local Government election, the state police command has announced the restriction of human and vehicular movement from 6 am to 4 pm of the same day within the state.
The command’s Public Relations Officer, DSP Abubakar Sadiq, in a statement made available to newsmen late Thursday, said the measure was aimed at maintaining law and order before, during and after the poll.
He said, ”In light of the upcoming local government election, which is scheduled to take place on Saturday, February 15, 2025, there will be restrictions on the movement of individuals and vehicles from 0600 hrs – 1600hrs within the state.
“This measure has been put in place to maintain law and order, as well as the security of the electorate to enable them to cast their votes without interference.
“The Commissioner of Police, Katsina State Command, CP Allyu Abubakar Musa, psc+, urges residents and all stakeholders in the state to comply with these movement restrictions in the interest of promoting a peaceful and transparent electoral exercise.
“Adequate security arrangements have been made to enforce the restrictions and to ensure the safety of all voters and election officials.”
He further called on eligible voters to come out and participate in the election and exercise their civic responsibility in a peaceful and orderly manner.
Meanwhile, earlier, the Chairman, Katsina State Independent Electoral Commission, Lawal Alhassan, told reporters at a press briefing on Thursday that the commission has commenced the distribution of sensitive electrical materials to all the 34 local government areas of the state.
He said the commission will start the distribution of especially far-reaching local government areas for early access as well as to avoid late arrival of materials.
He said, “I wish to let this all-important gathering know that, adequate arrangements were made by the commission and other security agencies to transport these materials to their respective destinations intact and safely.
“I equally want to inform you that all necessary arrangements were made for a hitch-free conduct of the exercise. Already the commission had recruited and trained over 20,000 ad-hoc staff who will undertake the exercise in all the designated Polling Units across the state, as non-sensitive election materials were distributed last week.
“The commission had this time planned to make the distribution of the sensitive election materials early in order to enable the timely distributions to all the designated centres across the 34 Local Government Areas, 361 political wards and 6,652 polling units in the state.
“On behalf of the commission, I therefore, call on the electorate to be rest assured that this time around, there will be no issue of late arrival of sensitive election materials to all the polling centres. I also want to let this gathering know that dedicated mobile telephone lines will be made public for genuine complaints to the commission on election day.”
