…says Civil defence corps are trained for VIP protection’
….‘Our lives in danger’ – Senators protest withdrawal
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has reiterated his order that police officers currently attached to prominent individuals be withdrawn and redeployed to areas ravaged by insecurity.
“I honestly believe in what I said, and I call on the IG. I hope the Minister for Police Affairs is here. So if you have any problem of security because of the nature of your assignment, please contact the IGP and get my clearance,” he stated during the Federal Executive Council Meeting on Wednesday.
Addressing concerns raised over the security implications of the withdrawal, Tinubu directed the Minister for Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, to work with the Inspector General of Police and the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) to replace the affected police personnel with NSCDC officers.
“The Minister for Interior should liaise with the IGP and the civil defence structure to replace those police officers who are on special security duties so that you don’t leave people exposed.
“NSA and DSS to provide further information and form themselves into a committee and review the structure,” he stated.
The President maintained that Nigeria could not afford to leave volatile areas without essential security manpower.
“It [withdrawal order] should be affected. We face challenges here and there of kidnapping and terrorism.
“We need all the forces that we can utilise. I know some of our people are exposed. I understand that we have to make exceptional provision for them, and then civil defence [personnel] are equally armed,” he added.
Presidential Order
On November 24, Tinubu, during a security meeting with service chiefs, the IGP and the Director-General of the Department of State Services, ordered the withdrawal of police personnel from VIP security duties.
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has ordered the withdrawal of police officers currently providing security for Very Important Persons in the country.
“Henceforth, police authorities will deploy them to concentrate on their core police duties,” a statement by the Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, partly read.
Three days later, the IGP, Kayode Egbetokun, said that 11,566 police personnel had been recalled following the presidential directive.
Egbetokun, who disclosed this during the strategic officers conference, also said that the redeployment of the affected personnel to underserved communities had since commenced.
Mixed Reactions
While some Nigerians lauded the initiative, others raised concerns about the implementation.
The lawmaker representing Borno South Senatorial District, Senator Ali Ndume, said that the presidential directive should be extended to the National Assembly.
Ndume noted that while the number of police personnel guarding NASS was too much, he alleged that some of his colleagues had police officers attached to their wives and children, a situation he said was insulting.
“I thought today I would not see so many police in the National Assembly, but there are still crowded police in the National Assembly. So I don’t know what the IGP is talking about.
“You can’t imagine what is happening. Some of our colleagues, some ministers have police [officers] attached to their wives. What is their business with that? [They] have police attached to their children,” he said on Channels Television’s Politics Today.
Similarly, Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka faulted the large number of armed security personnel accompanying Seyi Tinubu, the son of the President.
“I looked around, and there was nearly a whole battalion occupying the grounds of the hotel in Ikoyi.
“So, when I got back in my car, and I asked the driver who that young man was, and he told me, and I saw this SWAT team, a mixture; they were heavily armed, at least some 15 or so heavily armed to the teeth security personnel looked sufficient to take over a small country neighbouring city like Benin,” at the 20th Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism (WSCIJ) Awards in Lagos on Tuesday.
A retired Assistant Inspector General of Police (AIG), Abutu Yaro, has advised that Tinubu’s directive for the police to withdraw personnel from VIPs be implemented with serious caution.
He warned that if not handled carefully, the withdrawal could trigger regrettable fallouts.
Also, a former Director of the Department of State Services (DSS), Mike Ejiofor, raised concerns over the directive to transfer VIP protection duties from the police to the NSCDC.
Ejiofor insisted the corps neither has the manpower nor the training to take on such a sensitive role.
“The NSCDC does not have the capacity; they are not trained for it. They don’t have the numbers to deploy, and their statutory function is to provide security for critical infrastructure.
“That means you would also have to train them for VIP protection, so it is a very dicey situation,” Ejiofor said in an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today.
Senate Resolution
But following complaints that lawmakers were being singled out while other influential individuals continued to enjoy full security cover, the Senate on Wednesday directed its Committee on Police Affairs to investigate the alleged selective implementation of Tinubu’s order withdrawing police escorts from VIPs.
The resolution was reached after Senator Abdul Ningi (Bauchi Central) raised a point of order under Order 9 during plenary, expressing outrage that his only police orderly had been withdrawn despite the continued protection of ministers, business executives, political families, and celebrities.
Ningi warned that the uneven enforcement of the President’s directive could expose lawmakers to security threats and undermine the intent behind the order, issued in November as part of a broader national security strategy to improve police efficiency and public safety.
“It should be done across the board. I have seen ministers with heavy security, business concerns with their orderlies, children of political office holders with orderlies, and even singers enjoying full protection. But a Senator of the Federal Republic cannot have even one orderly? This is unheard of in any democracy,” he stated.
