By Emma Nnadozie, Crime Editor & Luminous Jannamike

Fear has gripped very important persons, VIPs, in the country, following directives by President Bola Tinubu that police escorts currently providing security for them be withdrawn.

Presidential spokesman, Bayo Onanuga, had said in a statement Sunday that, henceforth, police authorities would deploy them to concentrate on their core police duties, adding that VI’s who needed police protection would now request well-armed personnel from the Nigerian Security and Civil Defense Corps, NSCDC.

Based on this development, police sources said the affected VIPs had been inundating police headquarters with calls seeking more clarifications over the development and expressing fears, based on the prevailing security situation in the country.

According to the sources, their major concern is the ability of the NSCDC personnel to adequately protect them. One of them was quoted as saying it would be very difficult for personnel of the civil defence corps to render the services they required because of their training and equipment.

“He told us that it will be like engaging boys scouts to protect them as the mobile policemen they normally engage are more agile and battle-ready to confront any situation,” a source said.

Another VIP told Vanguard: “The practice of providing police escorts to high ranking officers and VIP’s has become a major feature of the security landscape in Nigeria but it must be noted that as the country grapples with growing security concerns, the use of police personnel for VIP protection has raised significant questions about its broader implications on public safety and the overall effectiveness of the police force.”

He called for rationalisation of the exercise to serve the purpose, rather than a blanket stoppage which, according to him, will increase the prevailing fears of insecurity in the society. “The justification behind this practice often rests on the high-profile nature of individuals involved, the perceived threat to their safety, and the desire to project power and influence. ‘’While these measures are meant to offer security for influential figures, the broader implication is that they come at a high cost to the public, both in terms of the security resources diverted and the moral perception of a system that favours the few over the many,’’ he said.

However, a serving police officer who pleaded anonymity, told Vanguard that the fundamental question that arose was whether the allocation of police officers to VIPs compromised the ability of the police to respond effectively to criminal activities within communities.

“In a country grappling with a wide range of security threats, including insurgencies, armed robberies, kidnappings, and communal violence, the use of law enforcement personnel to safeguard individuals who can afford private security is a cause for concern,” the officer said.
He also revealed that the growing demand for VIP protection significantly impacted the distribution of resources across the force.

“Police patrol teams in certain areas are often understaffed, and response times to distress calls are prolonged as a result of the overwhelming number of officers assigned to VIP duties. In some cases, police officers are redirected from high-crime areas to provide convoy escorts, leaving already vulnerable communities to fend for themselves,’’ he added.

A source within Force’s headquarters in Abuja said “we have several cases where a unit is deployed for an entire day to protect a governor or a businessman, and that leaves their assigned zones with fewer officers to patrol. ‘’It is a major logistical challenge, and it undermines the overall effectiveness of policing.”

A human rights activist, Tony Udemmadu, in his comment, stated: “The most concerning aspect of VIP police escorts is their potential to undermine public trust in law enforcement. The Nigerian public increasingly perceives the practice as a symbol of inequality. ‘’While the elite enjoy protection and attention from the police, ordinary Nigerians often find themselves facing mounting insecurity without sufficient resources or support from the police.

“In regions plagued by violent crimes, such as the Niger Delta or the Northeast, the absence of visible police presence due to escort assignments exacerbates the already precarious situation for citizens.”

When Vanguard called Force Public Relations Officer, Benjamin Hundeyin, over the number of police personnel involved, modalities for the withdrawal and the date of take off, he promised to get back to our reporter but at press time, he was yet to send a reply.

VIP police withdrawal mere drama, not strategy — ADC

Meanwhile, African Democratic Congress, ADC, has lashed out at President Bola Tinubu over his directive withdrawing police officers from VIP protection, describing the move as political theatre that does little to address Nigeria’s deepening security crisis.

The party warned that the administration appears more focused on optics than on developing a real strategy to confront terrorism, banditry, and mass abductions.

In a statement by the party’s spokesperson, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, the ADC said the government’s repeated reliance on the same tactic showed a worrying lack of understanding of the complexity of the country’s security challenges.

“While the directive makes for good headlines, it is not new and demonstrates the government’s lack of understanding of the true nature and complexity of Nigeria’s worsening security crisis.
‘’A country battling terrorism, banditry, mass abductions, and violent crime cannot afford to confuse public relations for policy,” Abdullahi said.

The ADC noted that this was not the first time such an instruction had been issued, recalling that in 2025 alone, similar orders were announced twice by the Inspector-General of Police, apparently on presidential directive, without any tangible results.

“To start with, this is not the first time we are hearing this from the APC government. In 2025 alone, such order has been given twice by the IGP, whom we believe was acting on the directive of the President. But nothing happened,” the party noted.

Abdullahi argued that even if the latest directive was fully implemented, it still missed the broader point; that the police, by their current training and orientation, were not equipped to take on the scale and sophistication of Nigeria’s security emergencies.

“Nevertheless, even if the President succeeds in relieving the police of VIP duties, we must face the bigger concern that by their training, mentality and orientation, these policemen are ill-suited and ill-equipped for the desperate emergency that we face,” he declared.

The ADC also questioned the government’s claim that the withdrawal would free up 100,000 officers for frontline security duties, insisting that the issue was not about numbers but capability.

While noting that even the military was struggling against the evolving tactics of insurgents, Abdullahi said: “The government claims that this announcement would add 100,000 men to the police. While this may fill some gaps in numerical strength, the real problem is not the number.

‘’It is the fact that even our military are finding it difficult to cope with the sophistication and adaptability of the insurgents, not to talk of police men who are ill equipped, ill trained and ill motivated for the complex task of counter-insurgency.’’

Fear no forest because it is dense”— African proverb

It is difficult to recall a time when we worried as much over our circumstances as we do today. Our first seven or so decades until independence were spent as a colony of the British. We were cobbled together basically as a commercial entity which promised and delivered a lot to the British. The elements of our composition and peculiarities as a colony challenged the best of Britain’s colonial administrators when they dealt with our decolonized status.

We were one of the biggest, most populous, most diverse and potentially the wealthiest of all African colonies. In the last two decades of our colonial status, we began to take shape as a potentially free country defined by diversity, compromises and a great enthusiasm to achieve greatness as an independent African country.

A few years outside direct colonization, we stumbled. It is futile projecting Nigeria’s democratic trajectory because the ill-fated hijack of its affairs by the military for over three decades leaves very limited relevant material for this purpose. The military that ended a fragile start to nation-building triggered and led the country through a 30-month civil war whose ghosts still haunt us. Nigeria won the civil war only because all of Nigeria provided a solid front against Igbo secession.

The  military then ruled over a nation coming into massive resources and leaking huge quantities of accountability. Control of state resources created massive corruption and generated the emergence of a new elite which made that control its sole objective. Competition for power and state resources in the context of an increasingly shrinking space created constant political  instability. After the military ran itself out of maneuvers, it gave way to a democratic system that was dwarfed by fully-grown corruption and a reckless political elite. A nation which could have developed its economy with its resources, solid values, an enterprising and hardworking population and a visionary leadership began to falter. Its poor were increasingly alienated politically and pauperized economically. Its leaders quarreled while stealing the commonwealth. A military that once stood up to apartheid, at imperialism in parts of Africa, to rebels who tore our neighbours apart and upheld the dignity of the black race shrank in confidence and competence.

Internal threats to our collective security began to grow from incidents to residents in a country that increasingly lost the quality of its leadership and the values of a democratic system which gave it cover. Our country bled from humongous official corruption; parasitic private sector and politicians who got to power by making citizens weaker and poorer; collapse of strategic and sensitive institutions and value systems and politics which created enemies out of us. A religious challenge to state authority in Borno State that could have been put down in a week and subsequently, permanently resolved grew into a powerful, terrifying monster owing to incompetence and greed of our leaders. Boko Haram insurgency revealed the tenuous hold of an aging  and crippled Northern ruling class, waning powers of the Islamic clergy and the very poor quality of secular leadership now at the helm in the North.It also revealed the stresses and  weaknesses which were part of the North’s inter-communal fabric and plural faiths and ethnicity of its population.

Other threats read the lesson: the Nigerian state can be challenged and its citizens badly molested because its leaders and its instruments of defence and security have lost their capacities to function. A great military was weakening under poor political leadership and corruption. We changed leaders and made our problems worse.The South-East was taken over by a vicious force which devoured its potential beneficiaries. The Nigerian state was challenged in the region and serially found wanting. The elite from the region developed a split personality. It could not take on secessionist sentiments, and could not give up its place among the ruling class of Nigeria. Igbo leaders walked on both sides of the street, and complained bitterly over neglect from the rest of Nigeria which thought it lacked a solid base.

Organized violence in the South-South threatened to destroy oil and gas assets. The State submitted to its demands and enabled organized violence to grow into the most effective national bargaining tool.

Every once in a while our basically plural nature was pushed to set us up to kill hundreds or thousands of each other in the names of our God, our tongues or our farmlands and cattle. The State paused and then moved on. Victims were punished, offenders shielded or rewarded. Justice became a political commodity. We learnt the hard way that the Nigerian state lacked the will and the capacity to do justice and punish wrongs. Our law and order institutions collapsed. Our judiciary acquired such an odious reputation, citizens were more content to live with injustice. Foreigners poured into our country with their weapons. Kidnapping became a thriving industry involving all shades and types of Nigerians and foreigners. Herders became armed killers. Peasants defined enemies and visited their justice on them. No one is innocent or safe in our country. Silence is complicity. Fighting back puts you on the wrong side of a law with many sides. Huge spaces have been lost to killers, including millions of citizens who submitted to them because the State cannot protect them. Our young grow up with death, crime,abuse and a pronounced disdain for a country that had invested nothing in them. Millions of some of our best and brightest left to develop other lands, and now they form the vanguard of the efforts to destroy the country.

Then President Tinubu stepped in, his eyes on reforming the economy in the hope that citizens will notice and applaud it as good governance. They have not. He inherited a bad situation and made it a lot worse. During his call, killings spiked. US President Trump threatens to punish a ‘disgraced’ Nigeria that has been involved in genocide against Christians. An almighty quarrel has broken out between Christians and Muslims, between those who insist they have been victims, and those who worry they will be more victimized. Fear is stalking the land following a dramatic escalation in criminal activities since Trump’s threat. There is a big argument over whether Trump’s threats are a cause or a consequence of schools closing, bandits raising their game terrorizing communities and the Tinubu administration and all our security assets are being swamped.

The buck stops at President Tinubu’s desk, and so far Nigerians have looked up to him for assurances and confidence in vain. His meek attempts to engage the US have made things worse. Trump does not respect us, and we  are not standing up to him. Our quarrels are becoming more shrill. We are afraid. We need our leader, Tinubu, to step up and calm nerves. To assure us that US will not push our country over the precipice. Tinubu asked us to trust him. Now we ask him to LEAD us.

IBADAN — FOLLOWING the rise in insecurity, the South-West Governors’ Forum, yesterday, declared that the establishment of State Police “can no longer be delayed” just as it unveiled a new regional security architecture to protect lives and property in the region. Meeting inside the Executive Chamber of the Governor’s Office, Secretariat in Ibadan, the governors deliberated extensively on security, economic development, agriculture and regional integration. Those in attendance were Governors Dapo Abiodun (Ogun), Biodun Oyebanji (Ekiti), Lucky Aiyedatiwa (Ondo), Babajide Sanwo-Olu (Lagos), Seyi Makinde (Oyo), and Ademola Adeleke of Osun State, who was represented by his deputy, Prince Kola Adewusi.

The communique of the meeting was read by the Chairman of the Forum and Governor of Lagos State, Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu.

The Forum commended the President for his intervention in national security and urgent rescue missions in other states, expressing solidarity with the Federal Government over recent kidnap incidents in Kebbi, Niger and Kwara states.

The communique reads: “The Forum commends Mr President, Bola Tinubu, on the fight against insecurity and various economic reforms and other developmental agenda.”

“The Forum expresses solidarity with the Federal Government in its efforts in Kebbi, Kwara and Niger States after the recent spate of kidnappings.

“The Forum applauds the swift response of the Federal Government towards the rescue of the Kwara abductees and more than 51 students of the Catholic School, Niger State.”

“The Forum agreed to set up a South West Security Fund (SWSF) under DAWN Commission to be administered by the Forum of Special Advisers on Security of all South West States and to meet monthly.

“The Forum resolves to establish a live, digital intelligence-sharing platform among all six South West states (Lagos, Ogun, Oyo, Osun, Ondo and Ekiti). This platform will exchange threat notifications, incident logs, traveller and cargo alerts, and coordinate state-to-state rapid response.

“The Forum calls on the Federal Government to note the urgent need for enhanced forest surveillance across the South West States and calls for the Federal Government to secure the vast forest belts that have become hideouts for criminal elements.

“The Governors reaffirm their collective commitment to reclaiming the forests, and ensuring that these spaces no longer serve as safe corridors for banditry, kidnapping, or any form of criminal activities.”

Addressing the growing problem of unregulated migration into the South West, the Forum emphasised the need for tighter border management and improved identification systems.

It said: “The Forum expresses deep concern about the unregulated interstate migration that continues to pose significant challenges across the Southwest.

“The Forum agrees to intensify security collaboration to ensure that interstate migration does not become a conduit for insecurity.

“The Forum expresses deep concern over the escalating illegal mining activities across the South West States, which continue to threaten environmental safety, public health and regional security.
“The Forum reaffirms its support for the establishment of State Police, emphasising that the time is now and it can no longer be delayed.

“The Forum acknowledges and appreciates the efforts of the Federal Government in providing food sufficiency and, in particular, commends the various farmers in the region for the increase in agricultural output and subsequent stability and reduction in food prices.

“The Forum commends the DAWN Commission and its activities on regional integration and security.
“We remain one, indivisible entity that will continue to enjoy and guard the religious tolerance that we have always been known for.”

Ogun orders registration of foreign nationals

Meanwhile, the Ogun State government, yesterday, directed the mandatory documentation of all foreign nationals residing within the state, as part of measures to curb insecurity in the state.

Governor Dapo Abiodun, who disclosed this while briefing newsmen after a high-level security meeting at his Iperu residence, said the documentation exercise would follow established security protocols and immigration regulations.

He added that no individual entering or living in the state will be allowed to operate without proper documentation and identification.

Abiodun said: “All foreign nationals within the State must be properly documented in accordance with security protocols and immigration regulations.

“There cannot be meaningful economic development in an atmosphere of insecurity. This is why we have taken decisive steps to ensure full documentation of foreign nationals and strengthen engagement with all non-indigene communities.

“As the industrial capital of Nigeria and the gateway state that connects the financial capital to the rest of the country, we have and must continue to be proactive in ensuring that we sustain our position as one of the more peaceful states in Nigeria. The best time to prepare for war is during peace.

“The ZAGA settlement in Ijebu-Ode would be dismantled and taken over by the government to prevent its continued use for unlawful activities.

“Landlords and individuals found to be accommodating miscreants or criminal elements will be decisively dealt with in line with the law.

“The establishment of a Forward Operating Base, FOB, around Ilara, a key border community in Imeko/Afon local government area of the state, will be prioritised to tighten border security.”