SENATOR Abdul Ningi of Bauchi Central depicted a sorrowful figure last week on the floor of the upper chamber when he complained bitterly that his orderly had been withdrawn on the order of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. He was amongst those politically exposed Nigerians, top business executives, musicians, and several others whom the Nigerian state provided police protection for, but have now been stripped of the privilege. In fact, the President’s directive is now forcing those affected to look elsewhere for protection.
Raising the issue under ‘’matters of national concern’’, Ningi, like a child whose toy has been snatched, told his colleagues that he woke up that fateful morning to be told that his only police orderly, whose security services he has enjoyed since he became a lawmaker in 1999, has been withdrawn.
Further to his dismay, he allegedly saw Ministers, Governors, and even a musician still enjoying security protection provided by men of the Nigeria Police on his way to the National Assembly. He wondered whether the President himself, the Vice President, Governors, and Ministers would continue to enjoy compliments of police protection while he and his colleagues in the upper chamber are left “unprotected’’.
Hear him: “Mr President, I saw two convoys of Ministers with plenty security personnel. I have seen Chinese business concerns with their compliments of orderlies. I have seen sons and daughters of political office holders with full security cover. I have even seen singers with orderlies. But a Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, who has been here for a very long time, had only one orderly, and he has been withdrawn. Let it be done across the board. Let me not see Governors, Ministers, and business concerns being covered while Senators are made scapegoats. This is unheard of in any democracy. You cannot put the National Assembly as a scapegoat while others enjoy the privilege of security cover.”
Indeed, I can understand his frustration. Since 1999, Ningi has been in the National Assembly feeding fat on the resources of Nigeria. He is not concerned that most Nigerians are daily subjected to harrowing experiences by bandits and kidnappers on the roads and even in their homes, as there is not enough police personnel to adequately provide security for over 200 million Nigerians. The issue only became a matter of ‘urgent national concern’ when his orderly was withdrawn. His calling for the same treatment for the President, Vice President, and State Governors sounds shallow.
Ningi should be told in clear terms that he should not compare sleep with death. Statutorily, only the President, Vice-president, Governors, Local Council Chairmen, legislative principal officers in the states and at federal level, Magistrates, and Judges are entitled to police protection. But this privilege has, over the years, been extended to just about anybody who can pay, leaving fewer personnel for real policing of the populace. Such is the level of degeneration of public office holders – that many go about with contingents of policemen in Toyota Hilux vehicles, signifying the presence of a prominent person in Nigeria.
To worsen matters, these personnel overrun the common man on the roads, with some, even harassing any driver who doesn’t give way for them. The sheer number of policemen deployed to serve political office holders is mind-boggling. As at the time Tinubu gave the order for their withdrawal, 11,566 policemen were on escort duties across the country.
Ningi should tell us and his colleagues if lawmakers in the United States of America enjoy personal police protection as he has been and is demanding. The U.S Capitol Police (USCP) ensures that all members of Congress receive 24-hour protection while they are within the U.S. Capitol buildings and grounds. Only the top-ranking members of congressional leadership (e.g. Speaker of the House, House and Senate majority and minority leaders and whips) are assigned full-time, personal protective details (PPDs) by the USCP.
Security in a member’s home state or district is primarily coordinated with local and state law enforcement agencies, with support and coordination from the USCP. To enhance security in these locations, members have access to funds for home security systems, office security improvements, and additional security professionals when performing official duties outside of the Capitol.
Why Ningi should be so desperate for police protection is still not clear to me. This is a man that has been in the Senate since 1999. We are talking about a span of 25 years. One would think that this shows him as a popular and well-loved representative of his people. Shouldn’t he feel free and safe amongst his constituents in all the time that he has been serving them? It would also interest Nigerians to know what he has done as a lawmaker in that time span to ensure that the lives of average Nigerians, especially those in his constituency, are safe.
It is time for Nigerian politicians to start taking responsibility for their actions and inactions. The likes of Ningi are responsible for turning most northern youths to almajiris. Since he got to the National Assembly in 1999, Ningi should tell the world what he has done to promote primary and secondary education in his state. Bauchi state has over 1.5 million children roaming the streets without education or parental guidance, and the issue is getting worse, day by day.
In 2016, UNICEF reported between 777,000 and 1.2 million children of school age who are out of school in Bauchi State. The state is in the same league with Kano and Katsina States, always competing for the top honour-state with the highest number of out-of-school children in the country. This problem is driven mainly by poverty, insecurity, and poor infrastructure. It will be right to add incompetence of the leaders and representatives.
Many of our lawmakers, especially those that are from the North can hardly visit their constituents, preferring to be holed in Abuja due to the fear of being attacked by their angry and hungry people or kidnapped by the miscreants they helped to create. Most of them forget that there will be a day of reckoning. Those children that were left unattended to for the past two decades have turned into bandits and kidnappers, giving the likes of Ningi and his colleagues in the National Assembly sleepless nights. With the money he has made from our commonwealth, Ningi could easily afford a private army to protect him and he should so do if the NSCDC officials that would replace his orderly is not good enough for him.
On the other hand, even as we chastise Ningi and his fellow privileged and entitled colleagues in the NASS, Tinubu should also ensure that the battalion of Policemen (apologies to Prof. Wole Soyinka) guarding his son, Seyi, is also reduced to the barest minimum. While he is entitled to police protection as a member of the first family, security personnel attached to him should not be more than two. There is absolutely no reason for him to be stuttering all over the place with a truck load of security personnel. In actual fact, he should be less visible and go about his business without too much distraction.
In the same league with him would be the FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike, who drives a Rolls-Royce to work. Since he came to national limelight, Wike has never worked with a private company, run his own business, or inherited billions from his family. He has been in politics for most of his adult life first, as a local government Chairman for eight-years, as a Chief of Staff to a former Governor, Rotimi Amaechi, as a Governor of Rivers State, and now as a Minister of the FCT.
In April 2017, following a public altercation between him and the then Inspector General of Police (IGP) Ibrahim Idris, the Force Headquarters released a statement, apparently oblivious of its implication, responding to a claim by the Governor that the IGP had marked him out for execution. The then police spokesman, CSP Jimoh Moshood, in the response, gave the number of police personnel attached to Wike as a mind-boggling 221. It is the same number attached to all the State Governors across the country. It is my strong recommendation that this figure should be reduced drastically.
Wike began work as the FCT Minister with the same mentality and a battalion of police men providing security for him. Tinubu should also have the balls to rein him in by drastically reducing the number of orderlies attached to him. It is when this is done across the board as rightly demanded by Ningi that Tinubu would be seen as being fair to all.
But when police personnel begin to perform domestic chores for husbands, wives, and concubines of government officials, council chairmen, traditional rulers, celebrities, and high net worth individuals, it impacts negatively on the image of the institution and the country – especially one battling insecurity on a frightening level.
Nigeria presently has around 370,000 to 371,800 police officers. Yet, a sizeable number are solely devoted to offering protection to rich Nigerians who can afford it and those in government. The number of policemen on ground is a far cry from the United Nations’ standard of one police man to 450 civilians. Tinubu had ordered the recruitment of additional 50,000 police officers in a bid to strengthen the Force and provide more boots on the ground. However, the long-standing feud between the Police Service Commission (PSC) and the Inspector General of Police (IGP) on who has the sole responsibility to recruit police officers should not derail the President’s directive.
The crisis began in 2019, when former Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Mohammed Adamu assumed control of recruitment, contrary to the Supreme Court’s ruling that it was the PSC’s constitutional mandate. Now that a joint committee has been set up to oversee the recruitment process, a water-tight measure should be put in place so that we won’t end up recruiting criminals into the Force.
While the President’s directive is commendable, the welfare of the average police officer should be looked into. Many of them are transferred at short notice without anyone thinking of where they would be accommodated. Most of them end up sleeping inside abandoned vehicles at police formations across the country. The uniform on many of them have seen better days, yet many do not have the financial capability to buy new ones. Some of them are into drugs, just to forget their sorrows, and yet, these are the people that are issued with guns to protect others.
Tinubu and Egbetokun should know that many of those police orderlies chose to work as escorts due to the extra cash and incentives they make while serving their bosses. In most cases, it comes with a decent accommodation, nice meals, and an allowance at the end of each month. That is why many of them are reluctant to return to the barracks. But now that they have been forced to, the state should be ready to provide better welfare or risk creating a larger pool of misfits.
See you next week.
- Akintunde is the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Glittersonline newspaper. His syndicated column, Monday Discourse, appears on News Point Nigeria newspaper on Monday.