Every time we ask why criminals roam freely or why citizens are left to fund their own safety through vigilantes, gated fences, and prayers, the answer isn’t just poor logistics or low funding. The truth is simpler and far more uncomfortable. Our police officers are missing in action because they’re stationed at the gates of the powerful.
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In a country of over 200 million people, the Nigeria Police Force barely musters 370,000 officers. This already falls beneath the UN’s recommended ratio of one police officer to every 400 citizens. But in Nigeria, that ratio is a fantasy. A huge percentage of these officers are not patrolling our streets or protecting our schools, they are guarding private homes, shadowing convoys, and waiting in car parks for VIPs who already live far above the law.
One senator can have ten armed escorts. A business tycoon’s wife may travel with a full detail. Their children, often schooling abroad or living in private enclaves, enjoy more security than most communities in Zamfara or Uyo. Our most competent, well-armed, professionally trained officers are not protecting the nation. They are moonlighting in uniforms, defending private privilege.
The solution sounds obvious. Let the rich hire private security companies and leave the police to protect the people. But in Nigeria, nothing is ever just about logic or legality. The Nigeria Police Force, particularly through the Special Protection Unit (SPU), has become a sprawling shadow economy. And VIP protection isn’t merely an administrative task it is a cash cow.
Take the SPU. It has multiple bases across the country three in Lagos, three in Abuja, several others in major cities like Port Harcourt. At the National Assembly alone, Base 20 controls over 3,000 officers attached to lawmakers and senior officials. For ¦ 150,000 per officer per month, any VIP can acquire a heavily armed escort. Of that sum, the officer receives about ¦ 100,000. The remaining ¦ 50,000 doesn’t disappear,it moves up. From unit commander to base commander, to the state commissioner of police and AIG in charge of SPU, and possibly beyond.
Now multiply ¦ 50,000 across thousands of officers nationwide. What you have is not a personnel deployment plan.It’s an unofficial but well-oiled revenue stream. That is why suggestions to withdraw police officers from VIPs don’t gain traction. They threaten a lucrative system, not just a security arrangement.
While the average Nigerian is forced to crowdfund ransom money for abducted family members or rely on hunters and vigilantes for protection, VIPs live inside a ring of tax-funded power. Security in Nigeria is not a right,it is a privilege. The police are not neutral actors, they are quietly leased out like property.
We cannot go on like this.The fact that a handful of elites can compromise the national security architecture for personal comfort is both dangerous and unsustainable. It explains why robberies take hours to respond to, why terror persists in rural communities, why people feel abandoned. The police have been turned into a commodity, and the Republic has been auctioned one armed escort at a time.
If we are serious about reform, we must build a firewall between the Nigeria Police Force and private patronage. It must become illegal for non-state actors to have more than one official escort, and any additional protection must be procured through private, regulated security services. The number of officers attached to VIPs must be published, audited, and scaled down. We must redirect these human resources back to public duty back to the people who actually need protection, not just those who can pay for it.
This is not class warfare. It is national clarity. Let the wealthy be safe, but not at the cost of the nation’s insecurity. Let them hire bodyguards, but not from a force funded to protect all. The police were never meant to be an elite service. They are a civic institution. They belong to the people.
We cannot afford to live in a country where,Governors have a battalion and villages have no patrol.
Celebrities flaunt armed escorts while markets are raided by bandits.
The force is drained of capacity, not by crime, but by corruption wearing perfume.
Officers aren’t policing Nigeria, they’re policing VIPs.
One senator can have ten armed officers. A business mogul’s wife might travel with a convoy of uniformed men. Their children, many of whom live abroad or attend private universities in Nigeria, often enjoy protection that entire rural communities never see. Nigeria’s best-trained, best-armed officers have been turned into private errand boys, guarding doors, holding handbags, and waiting hours in car parks for people who already live above the law.
On paper, the solution seems obvious.Let the rich hire private security firms and leave the police to protect the people. But in Nigeria, nothing is ever just about paper.
The Nigerian Police Force was not created to serve champagne at private parties. It was created to defend a nation. And until we end this quiet hostage-taking of our security by those who already have everything, the streets will keep bleeding, the citizens will keep begging, and the force ironically will be nowhere to be found.
Because it will be at someone’s gate, guarding a nameplate, polishing shoes, or watching a convoy of luxury slip through a broken country.
And until we end this quiet hostage-taking of our security architecture, the streets will keep bleeding, the people will keep asking, and the police ironically will be nowhere to be found.
Because they’ll be polishing shoes
Protecting the few.
While the rest of us count the bodies.
The post Why VIPs must stop holding Police hostage, by Stephanie Shaakaa appeared first on Vanguard News.
