Police authorities are set to restore the security details of the speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, weeks after it was withdrawn in the wake of his defection from the PDP to the All Progressives Congress.
Reports from the Police headquarters in Abuja indicate that the Police is hinging its decision on the emergence of Tambuwal as the governorship candidate for the APC in the forthcoming general election.
The speaker defeated four other contestants to emerge Sokoto APC governorship flag-bearer and will now slug it out with candidates from other parties at the February 2015 gubernatorial elections.
A Police source revealed that, “we still believe the speaker is not entitled to security based on his decision to defect. The constitution is very clear on that and we are defending our position well in court.
“However, since Tambuwal is now a candidate of a major political party in Sokoto, convention requires that he is protected by the Police. The federal government takes the security of leading candidates very seriously and as such, we will restore security to Tambuwal and at the same time provide same for all the leading candidates in all states of the federation.
“If the Police feel at any given time that the security of candidates is under threat, we are bound by law to come in and provide security. If you recall really well, the governorship candidate of the then ruling ANPP was murdered in Borno very close to the election, since then we reviewed our internal security arrangements and decided to notch security around candidates a bit high,” the source added.
When asked if the same number of men earlier withdrawn from Tambuwal will be restored, the source declined comments, saying that such a decision would only be determined by the Police high command.
Reports indicate that the federal government has directed all security agencies to ensure zero casualties especially of candidates for the forthcoming elections. The directive is said to be boosted by recent success of the government troops in their fight against insurgency in the Northeastern part of the country.
However, Tambuwal’s office could not be reached for comments as at the time of filing in this report.
When LEADERSHIP Weekend sought police reaction, CP Emmanuel Ojukwu, said he was not aware of the development, but he added that the police usually provide police protection to every candidate of a political party..
