Senator Shehu Sani, a former lawmaker who represented Kaduna Central in the 8th Senate, yesterday, demanded immediate implementation of the withdrawal of police officers from Very Important Persons (VIPs) as announced.

This is just as one of the leading opposition political parties, the African Democratic Congress (ADC) described the pronounced directive as political grandstanding that will not yield any meaningful results.

Daily Trust reports that President Bola Tinubu had on Sunday, during a high-level security meeting that was held at the State House in Abuja, directed the Inspector-General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, to withdraw all officers attached with the VIPs.

Those who attended Sunday’s meeting included the Chief of Army Staff, Lt.-Gen. Waidi Shaibu; the Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Sunday Kelvin Aneke; the Inspector-General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, and the Director-General of the DSS, Oluwatosin Ajayi.

According to a statement issued after the meeting by the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, any VIP who still requires escorts will no longer rely on the Nigeria Police Force for protection.

Onanuga said the President had asked them to officially apply for personnel from the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) while the police officers return to their core mandates of policing.

He said the President has repeatedly insisted that many underserved and remote areas across the country do not have adequate policing, while thousands of officers remain attached to politicians, business elites and wealthy individuals.

“Many parts of Nigeria, especially remote areas, have few policemen at the stations, thus making the task of protecting and defending the people difficult.

“In view of the current security challenges facing the country, President Tinubu is eager to boost police presence in all communities,” the presidential spokesman said in the statement.

Shehu Sani, ADC react

But reacting to the president’s directive, the former Senator, Comrade Sani, described the planned withdrawal as a good decision, given the country’s growing security challenges.

He, however, expressed skepticism that the policy statement by Tinubu would be implemented because of past failure to implement the same directive.

Reacting to the development via a post on his verified X handle, Sen. Sani specifically explained that the directive might end up as a mere statement without full implementation.

“Withdrawal of Police from VIPs is a good idea and good policy statement in view of the nation’s urgent security needs, but it will only begin and end up as a statement,” the former lawmaker wrote.

On its part, the ADC dismissed Tinubu’s announcement on the withdrawal, saying it is a “political grandstanding that will not yield any meaningful results.”

In a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, the ADC said the announcement of the policy confirms the government’s lack of appreciation of the complexity of the security situation in the country and what needs to be done to resolve it.

The party, however, called for a holistic national security strategy that integrates all security agencies as a holistic counter-insurgency force that will tackle the prevailing insecurity in the country.

It noted that while the presidential 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.

The party said, “A country battling terrorism, banditry, mass abductions, and violent crime cannot afford to confuse public relations for policy.

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

“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.

“Therefore, the dramatic gesture of withdrawing police protection from VIPs may pander to populist sentiment, but it does not address the problem.”

ADC said the government which claimed it would add 100,000 men to the police will only fill some gaps in numerical strength, adding that 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,” Abdullahi said.

According to him, it is more intriguing that while withdrawing policemen from the VIPs, the government is replacing them with the NSCDC whose mandate include Disaster Risk Reduction and Management, community protection and educating the people on safety measures.

It added, “Nigeria’s security challenges must be addressed comprehensively, not cosmetically. What the country needs is not the reshuffling of personnel for headlines, but a coherent national security strategy anchored in modernisation, intelligence, and institutional integration.

“For the Nigeria Police Force and other security agencies to do this work, they must be restructured, reequipped, and retrained to confront today’s threats with suitable tools. This work is urgent, and half measures will not suffice.

“Moreover, this government must tell Nigerians the truth. Where is the data supporting the claim that 100,000 officers have been withdrawn from VIP duties? Where is the operational plan? Where are the tools, logistics, and systems to ensure that these officers, who are used to being escorts to VIPs, can be effective in the field?

“Merely redeploying policemen without clarity about the role they are expected to play within a larger framework and strategy specifically designed to deal with insurgency and terrorism is meaningless.”

Timeline of previous withdrawal orders

Checks by our correspondent showed that this is not the first time the withdrawal of police escorts from VIPs would be announced but implementation has always been the problem.

In 2003, IGP Mustafa “Tafa” Adebayo Balogun made headlines by ordering the withdrawal of police orderlies from judicial officers and politicians.

He argued that too many officers were being diverted to personal protection duties, undermining effective policing. However, the move was controversial. Then, judges and political leaders pushed back.

The Chief Judge of the Federal Capital Territory, Justice Lawal Gummi, publicly condemned the directive, saying it endangered court functions.

Within a month, Balogun partially reversed the order by reinstating the police orderlies to their positions on October 13, 2003.

A few years later, precisely in August 2009, IGP Ogbonnaya Onovo announced that all police personnel serving as private orderlies should return to their bases.

He explicitly warned that “any policeman or woman who continues in such duty will be dismissed forthwith and delisted,” but the directive did not last.

Within a short time, Onovo partially walked back his own order, allowing some high-profile individuals (including wives of governors and other VIPs) to retain orderlies.

In 2010, when IGP Hafiz Ringim assumed leadership of the force, he renewed the push for reform, warning that officers who refused to return from VIP duties “would be arrested, delisted and prosecuted.”

The then police spokesman, Emmanuel Ojukwu, said a special monitoring unit would be established to enforce the order. Still, the directive collapsed like a pack of cards soon after.

Two years after, specifically in February 2012, Acting IGP Mohammed Abubakar took a bold step by cancelling all approved police guards for private individuals and corporate bodies.

He framed the move as part of a broader effort to restore “professionalism, integrity and lost glory” to the Nigeria Police Force but the reform did not also last.

When late IGP Solomon Arase came on board, he once lamented that Nigeria was “grossly under-policed” during a public appearance in March 2016.”

He argued that too many officers were posted as personal orderlies, and he ordered: “policemen on postings as orderlies to individuals, including politicians, be withdrawn immediately and redeployed to other more sensitive posts.”

He made this case in the context of bolstering security across communities rather than privileging a few.

In March 2018, IGP Ibrahim Idris issued a sweeping directive: “the withdrawal of all police officers deployed to VIPs, political and public office holders, with immediate effect.”

He said the order would help streamline deployment to improve “effective and efficient policing” of Nigeria.

On October 21, 2020, IGP Mohammed Adamu ordered the withdrawal of all police personnel attached to VIPs.

But he carved out important exemptions: “those attached to Government Houses, the Senate President, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives” were excluded from the order.

Adamu’s move came shortly after the controversial disbanding of SARS, during a highly charged moment of public scrutiny of policing.

In June 2023, Acting IGP Kayode Egbetokun announced that Police Mobile Force (PMF) officers would no longer perform VIP escort and guard duties.

He also said a special committee has been created to implement and enforce the policy, and that Special Protection Unit (SPU) officers would replace PMF in key areas where necessary. In July 2023, the police force later reaffirmed: “the decision … stands firm, and there will be no going back.”

Despite the announcement, there was some clarification: the Force Public Relations Officer Muyiwa Adejobi later explained that the move applied specifically to PMF personnel — not all police officers assigned to VIPs.

Later that year, in November, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu was said to have directed the withdrawal of police escorts from VIPs as part of a broader policing reform.

This supposed directive aligned with his campaign promise to push community-based policing and reduce misuse of security resources by wealthy individuals.

In the same vein, in April 2025, IGP Egbetokun revisited the same issue, this time emphasising the harmful impact of diverting tactical units from operational duties.

He stated that VIP escort assignments had become “a distraction” for PMF officers, limiting their readiness for emergencies. The announcement was stricter than the previous one, but again, implementation was weakened by exceptions granted to politically connected individuals.

Despite these orders, enforcement has been weak, as many VIPs have continued to retain police escorts through political influence or unofficial arrangements.

Over the course of more than two decades, repeated IGP directives have tried to scale back police protection duties for VIPs or political figures. But in many cases, implementation has been weak or short-lived.

Orders have often been praised rhetorically as part of reform or professionalisation, yet they have sometimes been watered down or reversed amid resistance.

The pattern suggests that while the idea of reducing VIP protection enjoys cross-administration support, enforcing it remains a persistent challenge, often because of entrenched power structures and the high value placed on security details by the elite.

Many Nigerians are hopeful that the redeployment will translate into faster police response and improved presence in neighbourhoods where lawlessness has grown. (Daily Trust)

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