The Nigeria Police Force has threatened to arrest and prosecute individuals caught destroying marketing campaign billboards and posters belonging to political opponents forward of the 2027 polls.
The police stated the warning turned crucial following reviews of tearing and defacing of marketing campaign supplies belonging to candidates and political events in numerous elements of the nation.
According to the Force, such actions quantity to political intolerance and should cease.
Force Public Relations Officer, CSP Ani Iniedu, who disclosed this in an announcement issued on Wednesday, stated the act is punishable beneath the regulation.
He defined that wilful destruction of marketing campaign supplies falls beneath malicious injury and mischief as supplied in Section 451 of the Criminal Code Act and Section 326 of the Penal Code.
Iniedu famous that supporting a political celebration doesn’t confer the proper to tamper with the marketing campaign property of one other candidate or intervene with their freedom to marketing campaign.
He stated each political celebration and candidate deserves equal safety, including that no particular person has the authority to determine which posters or billboards must be allowed to face.
The Inspector-General of Police, IGP Olatunji Rilwan Disu, has ordered Commissioners of Police within the 36 states and the FCT to place preventive measures in place, probe all complaints obtained and guarantee offenders are dropped at guide.
Disu warned that sponsors of thugs and those that help such criminality won’t be spared if investigations hyperlink them to the offence.
The police urged political actors and their supporters to embrace peace and respect opposing views, insisting that democracy should not be truncated by intimidation and lawlessness.
It maintained that anybody who violates the regulation within the identify of politics will likely be made to face the implications.
