By Uzor Odigbo
Former Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN) technical director, Commodore Omatseye Nesiama (retd), the Security Consultant for the 5th Lagos City Marathon, has said that no fewer than 5,000 security personnel will be deployed for the race.
Nesiama said on Monday in Lagos that the security personnel would cover intelligence and security aspects of the marathon scheduled for February 8 in Lagos.
“Over 5,000 security personnel have been designated for intelligence and security coverage of the marathon.
“To ensure orderliness, especially, during and after the event, we have put in place the process of mass communication to ensure that every legal means is utilised.
“This is to alert participants, spectators and to see that members of the immediate communities where the sprinters will race through are all kept in the picture,” he said.
The World Athletics (WA) International Technical Official (ITO) said that another significant innovation that would be introduced into this year’s edition would be a communication system with better cohesion.
“With a robust communication system in place, we hope to have a better cohesion as the security agencies will be fully on-board.
“This is because the security team for the marathon had carried out a detailed assessment of every area that is connected to this event.
“The security agencies, both armed and unarmed, had been briefed on different but related scenarios where their personnel will be involved,” he said.
Nesiama said that an Emergency Response Training (ERT) venue had been set up.
He said that from there, the planned Command, Control and Communications setup to be deployed for the marathon would be tested to ensure efficiency.
He also said that the organisers had put measures in place to identify un-accredited athletes, saying that they would be disqualified if caught.
“We want to advise and encourage all accredited sprinters that will be participating in the race to be at the established screening points before the start of both the 42km and 10km races.
“There are measures already designed to identify those that will not go through screening. Such runners will be removed from the race once detected.
“Alternatively, their results will make no meaning, if for whatever reason, they are able to finish the race,” he said