'Lai Olurode and MK Hammanga details of posting should have been worked out and information shared among stakeholders. Security personnel should have enough time to familiarize themselves with their areas of posting. Language could as well be considered as an objective factor in deployment. There are however, some subjective factors that are bound to influence posting for electoral duties. Though, a military concept, deployment is social as well in that it involves human beings and interaction between them. Those who undertake deployment and those to be deployed have interests to protect. They have their biases against being posted to some areas and have political interest as well. All these cannot but impact on their decisions. Some states and even Local Government Areas are perceived as rich in resources and being on deployment there even for a few days in some of them would attract pecuniary benefit. Whereas being posted to some states may be regarded as punitive. It is common for security agencies to move their personnel around during elections so as to insulate them from partisanship during election duties. Some security personnel may lobby for posting to areas considered as juicy and rewarding rather to areas that are considered as dry or too risky. It is generally believed that posting within the security agencies is often influenced and not a random process. Politicians are also believed not to leave things about posting of security personnel to chance. Politicians believe that security personnel can influence electoral outcomes and they therefore try to cultivate their friendship. Security personnel in general but, policemen in particular, are expected to look the other way when electoral 72 ELECTION SECURITY IN NIGERIA: MATTERS ARISING Deployment of Security Personnel in Elections: Challenges and Lessons from the Field mal-practices are being perpetrated. Nigerian politicians therefore often include the cost of buying the loyalty and support of security personnel into their election budget as well as those of prayers by men of God. Inter-agency rivalry can be considered a factor in deployment as well, but with the coming into being of ICCES under the auspices of the Independent National Electoral Commission, sanity has been injected into the relationship between the security agents that are involved in election duties. The Nigeria police leads and it is responsible for the deployment and coordination of security personnel on election duties. It must be stated that the practice of deployment is different from its theory. There are some factors that negate professional deployment. Field experiences show that deployment is often delayed until the morning of elections. There are often exaggerated figures of the security personnel that need deployment. Posting of personnel on election duties is also often not well coordinated and logistics challenges have persisted. In some cases, security personnel may be promptly deployed but transportation becomes a bottle neck. The cumulative effects of these shoddy arrangements include late appearance or even non-appearance of policemen at polling units. It is not surprising that reservations about the conduct of security personnel particularly, policemen during election have become a recurring decimal 6 . These unethical conducts, no doubt, fetter free, fair and credible elections. As a means of remedying the situation, there is the need to have a robust template of deployment of security personnel on election ELECTION SECURITY IN NIGERIA: MATTERS ARISING 73