A retired Assistant Inspector General of Police (AIG), Abutu Yaro, has advised that President Bola Tinubu’s directive for the police to withdraw personnel from VIPs be implemented with serious caution.
Yaro, who was a guest on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Wednesday, warned that if not handled carefully, the withdrawal of police officers from VIPs could trigger regrettable fallouts.
“We must emphasise strongly that we implement it (withdrawal of police from VIPs) with serious caution,” Yaro said. “If not, the fallout of a hasty implementation of this directive will be regrettable in many respects and we have historical antecedents to these mindsets.”
To emphasise his point, the retired AIG listed the late Bola Ige, Funsho Williams, and General Mohammad Shuwa as VIPs who lost their lives after being left vulnerable to attacks due to the absence of security attachment.
Police withdrawal from VIPs
Tinubu had on Sunday ordered the withdrawal of police officers at a security meeting in Abuja attended by Service Chiefs and the Director-General of the Department of State Services.
The President directed the police authorities to deploy the officers to concentrate on their core policing duties, a situation that mandated the Special Protection Unit of the Nigeria Police Force to order all officers attached to VIPs and beats nationwide to return to their bases.
Under the new arrangement, Tinubu said VIPs requiring security protection will now need to request armed personnel from the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), rather than relying on police officers.
The Presidency explained that the move aims to boost police presence in communities, especially in remote areas where police stations are often understaffed and citizens remain vulnerable to attacks.
‘Civil Defence not for VIP protection.
However, Yaro argued that the Civil Defence Corps is not designed to protect VIPs or act as an alternative security outfit to the police.
“The fact that they said civil defence should come in does not really work in that way. Civil defence all over the world are designed to take care of civilians in terms of national emergencies.
“Civil defence all over the world, not only in Nigeria, are not designed to protect the VIP and act as an alternative security platform to the police.”
He likened it to asking a nurse to perform the duties of a doctor, reiterating that things must be done with caution.
Asked if he would have done something different from what the President directed, the retired AIG replied in the affirmative.
“I wouldn’t have ordered that the police should leave the VIPs because the VIPs are a very important segment of our nationhood,” he said.
Yaro stated that he would have preferred to increase the number of police officers in the country and give them more quality training.
“My advice is that we could have increased the number of police. Our mobile police, we have about 80 squadrons as we speak; we should have upgraded them to semi-military format as they were with the concept when they were introduced into our security system in 1962,” he added.
Armed Forces, Police recruitment
Meanwhile, Tinubu, while declaring a nationwide security emergency amid rising insecurity on Wednesday, ordered additional recruitment into the Nigerian Armed Forces and the police force.
“Today, in view of the emerging security situation, I have decided to declare a nationwide security emergency and order additional recruitment into the Armed Forces.
“By this declaration, the police and the army are authorised to recruit more personnel. The police will recruit an additional 20,000 officers, bringing the total to 50,000,” he said in a statement her personally signed.
Tinubu, who said that he had previously approved the nationwide upgrade of police training facilities, authorised the security agency to use various National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) camps as training depots.
According to him, the officers being withdrawn from VIP guard duties should undergo “crash training” to debrief them and deliver more efficient police services when deployed to security-challenged areas of the country.