The Inspector-General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, has said the police, military and other security agencies did not use excessive force on the #EndBadGovernance protesters.
Speaking at a meeting of security agencies heads on Tuesday in Abuja, the IGP said there were attacks on security operatives deployed to manage the protests.
According to the police boss, the military and police did not use live ammunition during the protests.
“The police and the military, indeed no other security agency involved in the management of this protest has deployed excessive use of force. Instead, what we had were attacks on security agents during the protest. From our record, there were no shooting incidents by the police,” Egbetokun said.
“The police or military did not use any live ammunition in the management of these protests. Instead, we have had cases where our officers were injured and are in critical condition as we speak.
“I will dismiss that as fake news and very wrong allegations. We didn’t use excessive force at all. We didn’t even deploy the whole of our strength in this protest even when it turned violent. We have water cannons we did not deploy, we have rubber bullets, we didn’t use. All that we have used in the management of this protest is teargas and nothing more.”
The IGP also dismissed claims that the police were not overstretched by the protests, saying several other criminals were apprehended during the demonstrations.
He explained that other criminal activities were recorded during the protests except for kidnapping.
“We were not overstretched; we had standby units that we didn’t deploy in managing this protest. Even while the protests were going on, a number of them were arrested.
“Hoodlums who committed armed robbery were arrested. The only thing we didn’t have was kidnapping. But any other offence that was committed we paid due attention to those criminal activities,” Egbetokun said.
On the incident in Kaduna, the police chief noted that no Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC) was hijacked by the protesters in the North-Western State.
“The situation in Kaduna is that we didn’t even deploy APC for the protest. The APC you saw was deployed to the Government House in Kaduna. Protesters went to the gate and as the driver was driving out, those protesters climbed the APC. And what the driver did was to make a U-turn and go back to the front of the Government House gate. It wasn’t a case of hijacking APC.”