President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has ordered the police to be immediately withdrawn to provide security to Very Important Persons (VIPs) and instead redeployed them to the main policing roles nationwide.
The directive was given at an extremely high-level security meeting it conducted on Sunday in Abuja in the presence of the Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Waidi Shaibu; Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Sunday Kelvin Aneke; Inspector-General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun; and the Director-General of the Department of State Services (DSS), Tosin Adeola Ajayi.
According to the new policy, the VIPs who would demand security escorts will now be required to seek the services of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) to provide them with armed security, as opposed to the police.
According to government sources, the move is informed by the fact that the country is facing an issue of there not being enough police officers to cover the communities around the country, especially in remote parts of the country where the police stations have not had enough manpower to cover the residents.
President Tinubu has also endorsed the employment of 30,000 new police officers to improve security coverage and is also collaborating with state governments to modernize training outlets of the law enforcers in the entire country.
The policy change indicates the rethinking of the administration towards dealing with the prevailing security issues affecting most parts of Nigeria by enhancing the visibility of the police presence in the locality, their response capacity, and the visibility of their operation.
