The Inspector-General of Police, IGP Kayode Egbetokun, has announced that 11,566 police personnel have been withdrawn from private security duties assigned to Very Important Persons, VIPs.
DAILY POST reported that President Bola Tinubu had ordered the withdrawal of police officers currently providing security for VIPs across the country.
The President said that, henceforth, police authorities would redeploy the affected officers to focus on their core policing duties.
The presidential directive was issued during a security meeting held on Sunday in Abuja with the heads of the police, Air Force and Army, as well as the Director-General of the Department of State Services, DSS.
According to the directive, VIPs who require armed protection will now request well-armed personnel from the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps.
Addressing journalists in Abuja on Thursday, the Inspector-General said the presidential order had lifted considerable pressure from his office.
“We have already withdrawn 11,566 personnel. We have given directives for that,” he said.
“I have heard, I have seen some things posted on the social media, misleading. People are quoting figures. I don’t know where they got their figures, where they said that 120,000 policemen are attached to private individuals in Nigeria.
“These are lies not true. I don’t know where they got their figure from, and that’s the figure that’s been brandished everywhere. How many are we in the Nigerian police that we would attach 120,000 to private individuals?
“The recent presidential directive that we should withdraw policemen from VIP protection made us discover that 11,566 policemen are engaged in VIP protection as at today in Nigeria Police Force.
“Of course, this is not the first time we are implementing this type of directive. Recently I gave instructions that policemen should be withdrawn from private individuals, and those private individuals who desire police protection should reapply. Because we saw the need to profile these individuals that are applying for police protection.
“During that time, a number of policemen were withdrawn, many of them not reassigned, before this presidential order came. So it’s something that we have been doing, but the recent presidential order will make the implementation more effective.
“Now that it is a presidential order, there will be no pressure on the IG, in fact, the presidential order is a cover for us to implement this directive that we have been trying to implement all this while.
“So you can see that the implementation is going to be more effective this time around, because I know that nobody is going to call IG again, to say ‘please, these are my people.’
“No governor is going to call me, no minister is going to call me. My friends, my family members will not put any pressure on me because they know that it is a presidential order, and I’m sure they are not going to put any pressure on any of my commissioners of police, because they know that this is a presidential order.
“So implementation is going to be very effective this time around, and we are going to deploy these men to the areas where we need them.
“We are returning to our frontline policing function, especially at this critical time. Every time we are talking of manpower needs, manpower shortage, and now that we have surplus of 11,566 that are coming.
“We are deploying, redeploying to core policing functions is going to help us a lot.
“We will not neglect the welfare of these men. Mr President, who gave this directive, knows very well. He knows more than all of us.
“He knows very well that the welfare of these men is important, and anyone we are sending to the rural communities, to these remote communities, their welfare will be taken care of, that, I can assure you.”