Nigerians now have a new civic duty – to police the police for the government.
It has become necessary because the government cannot be sure that its order for policemen to detach from guarding the rich and the affluent will be obeyed.
“If you identify a celebrity, a private sector person, or any individual who has police against the executive order of the president, as much as you can, capture evidence, whether a photograph or video,” the President’s Special Adviser on Media and Public Communication, Daniel Bwala, urged Nigerians.
This is what Nigeria of our time has become – a nation where presidential orders dissolve like ice in fire, where the machinery of state has fragmented into a thousand fiefdoms of personal interest, and where the very concept of a unified command structure exists only on paper.
President Bola Tinubu didn’t wake up one morning and decide to crowdsource governance. He was forced into this humiliation.
Faced with relentless pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump to address the massacres of Nigerians by armed bandits and terrorists, Tinubu suddenly needed bodies to patrol streets, guard borders and protect the living.
But where were they?
Sitting in the air-conditioned, bullet-proofed vehicles of the VIPs and gated communities. Carrying designer handbags for Lagos and Abuja socialites.
Standing at attention as “meguard” outside the magnificent mansions of politicians who have cornered the nation’s wealth.
Out of Nigeria’s estimated 372,000 police officers, more than 100,000 – approximately 27 percent – have been conscripted into private service, guarding the rich from the consequences of their own theft.
And the officers? They prefer it this way. Who wouldn’t? The work is easy. There is no sweat over bandits and the pay is better.
Madam’s Gucci bag weighs less than the burden of actual policing. If you keep her happy – if you bow deep enough, laugh at her jokes, endure the small humiliations – she might gift you something substantial.
Cash!
More than that. Connections. A future. The kids’ school fees.
The street offers none of this.
The street offers bullets and bloodshed and a government that doesn’t even pretend to have your back if you die!
So, when the order came down – when President Tinubu, supposedly the “oga patapata at the top,” commanded these officers to return to their posts—they simply… didn’t.
Who would?
They looked at the directive, calculated their options, and chose comfort over obedience.
This wasn’t the first time. In June 2023, a newly appointed Inspector General of Police Kayode Egbetokun issued the same order, promising that tactical units would be reserved for strategic national operations. His men ignored him.
In April 2025, he tried again, calling for nationwide withdrawal of mobile police from VIP details. Again, silence. Not defiance exactly – just the passive resistance of people who know the emperor can only bark.
Think about what this means.
A president gives an order.
Law enforcement shrugs.
Out of Nigeria’s estimated 372,000 police officers, more than 100,000 – approximately 27 percent – have been conscripted into private service, guarding the rich from the consequences of their own theft
And the president’s response isn’t to fire anyone, court-martial anyone or restructure anything.
Instead, it’s to turn to regular Nigerians – the victims already terrorised by bandits, already abandoned by their government – and say: “Can you help me? Can you watch the police for me? Can you tell me if they’re listening?”
This is not governance.
This is a hostage negotiation between a state and its own security apparatus.
The European Union Agency for Asylum published a damning report last month, revealing that manpower shortages, corruption, and limited resources have left Nigerian communities naked before violence.
The report depicted a security infrastructure so compromised by graft that it functions primarily to protect the privileged.
But let’s be clear about who gets protection and why.
The ultra-rich get protection but they probably fear bandits because of fat bank accounts.
The rich also fear their people who they have dispossessed, exploited, discarded.
The VIP police attachment isn’t about security.
It’s about insulation.
It’s about maintaining the distance between the oppressor and oppressed, ensuring that consequences flow in only one direction.
Idris Wase, former deputy speaker of the House of Representatives, and his colleague, Senator Aliyu Wamakko from Sokoto don’t want to be exposed.
Wamakko said, “that is going to constitute another danger, because the VIPs are going to be the next target, and the government will come back and reverse the policy.”
Meanwhile, ordinary Nigerians – the ones who actually voted for Tinubu hoping he’d solve this crisis – are being kidnapped or slaughtered by terrorists who operate with impunity.
Nigerians believed Tinubu would fix this. He hasn’t. Can he? The problem isn’t bigger than presidential power – it’s that presidential power, as currently constituted, compromised.
We learn every day that members of the cabinet, the military and the highest echelons of power are conspiring with terrorists.
It’s not good.
You cannot command men whose allegiance is elsewhere.
You cannot enforce laws when law enforcement answers to the highest bidder.
You cannot govern a nation that has splintered into competing fiefdoms of self-interest.
Last week, Tinubu fired his Minister of Defence, Abubakar Badaru, after a catastrophic BBC interview where Badaru claimed the Nigerian Air Force couldn’t eliminate forest-hiding terrorists because “some hideouts are too thick for bombs to penetrate.”
The Punch editorial board eviscerated him: “Comments like this by a defence minister prove there is no determination to combat the Islamic insurgency and banditry. Rather, puerile excuses are being manufactured to justify failure.”
The media were being kind.
This wasn’t incompetence.
This was a surrender by the man charged with protecting 200 million people, dressing up failure in bureaucratic language.
But here’s the question that should haunt every Nigerian: Why did it take a newspaper editorial for Tinubu to realise his defence minister was a disaster?
And why, when American pressure finally forced action, was the response merely to shuffle personnel rather than interrogate the entire rotting structure?
Firing an incompetent minister is necessary but insufficient. It’s treating symptoms while the disease metastasizes.
The fundamental crisis isn’t individual failure – though there’s plenty of that.
It’s systemic collapse.
Every police officer who defied withdrawal orders must face disciplinary action – not memos or warnings, but suspensions, demotions, dismissals and interrogations
When presidential orders are optional.
When VIPs matter over the general public.
When ministers manufacture excuses instead of results.
When governors and military commanders freelance policy based on personal incentive. When civil servants do “just whatever they want.
It is systemic collapse.
This is what failed states look like.
Not from invasion or natural disaster, but from internal decomposition – from the slow rot that sets in when institutions become vehicles for personal enrichment rather than public service.
Nigeria has become a network of warlords wearing suits instead of fatigues.
Each one maintaining their own sphere of influence, their own revenue streams, their own private armies of police who’ve forgotten – or never learned – what it means to serve a nation rather than a patron.
I come again.
The Tinubu administration faces a stark choice: Reassert control or admit it doesn’t exist – now, not next year.
First, consequences must be real and immediate.
Every police officer who defied withdrawal orders must face disciplinary action – not memos or warnings, but suspensions, demotions, dismissals and interrogations.
The message must be clear: disobedience ends careers.
The Inspector General who issued orders that were ignored must either enforce them or resign.
There is no middle ground here.
Authority that tolerates defiance isn’t authority.
Secondly, there is an urgent need to restructure the incentive systems that make VIP duty more attractive than actual policing.
If officers prefer serving oligarchs, it’s because the state has made that choice rational.
Increase salaries. Improve working conditions.
Create career advancement paths tied to public service excellence rather than patron relationships.
Make street policing the prestigious assignment and private guard duty the demotion.
Thirdly, break the concentration of security resources.
No individual – not politicians, not business moguls, not former officials – should command dozens of state security personnel.
Establish strict limits.
Publish lists of who has protection and why.
Make VIP security allocations subject to public scrutiny and regular review. Transparency is the enemy of privilege.
Fourthly, rebuild command and control from the ground up.
This means installing leaders at every level who will obey orders and remove those who won’t.
Next, address the culture of impunity that permeates government.
Executive leaders who fail to execute must be fired swiftly, not after newspaper editorials force action. Military officers who can’t achieve objectives must be replaced by those who can.
Civil servants who serve themselves rather than citizens must face consequences.
The rot extends beyond police to every institution—all must be cleaned.
Finally, the president must govern, not plead.
The image of Tinubu begging citizens to help him enforce his own orders is devastating.
It signals to everyone – domestic and international – that Nigeria’s executive has no executive power.
That must change.
A president who cannot command his security forces cannot protect his people. And a president who cannot protect his people has failed the most basic obligation of governance.
Nigerians deserve a government that governs.
Police who police.
Leaders who lead.