In Nigeria, people are sleeping with one eye open. That’s how scared they are. Ask businesswoman Ifeoma Aneke. “Everybody is so scared, even to sleep, if you are sleeping now I don’t think people are sleeping with their eyes closed,” she says.
A spate of kidnappings and other violent crimes has shaken the people’s faith in policing. “I don’t think anybody feels safe, aside me (not just me), I don’t think anybody feels safe with what is happening in Nigeria presently because, the kidnapping, the bandits everywhere, the killing … If you hear any noise anywhere, you will just wake-up because everywhere is not safe in Nigeria presently,” she adds.
And that’s because few policemen are actually patrolling the streets. Most of them are busy providing security to V.I.P.s.
The latest kidnapping of more than 2 hundred schoolgirls from a Catholic boarding school in the central state of Niger is a case in point. The incident takes place on 21st November. St. Mary’s Catholic School in Niger State is the target. Gunmen spray bullets into the air and then force 300-odd students and 12 teachers and staff into the nearby forest at gunpoint. Two days after the kidnapping, some 50 students manage to escape and reunite with their families. 253 students are still being held by kidnappers. 12 teachers are also in captivity.
So, here’s the nub of the problem. There are more police personnel on V.I.P. security duty than for the protection of ordinary Nigerians. For decades, the Nigerian Police Force has brazenly prioritised the protection of elites over its Constitutional mandate of protecting the general populace. According to the European Union Agency for Asylum, more than 100,000 of the estimated 371,000-strong force were assigned to protect politicians and other V.I.P.s.
The categories of people drawing police protection have expanded absurdly over the years. Both serving and former holders of public office, their wives and children, all are covered as well. Religious leaders, managing directors of banks, business magnates, all receive dedicated police details, too. In some cases, even retirees from high offices continue to get a security detail long after leaving public service. When all these layers are added up, tens of thousands of police personnel – who should be patrolling the streets and protecting the public – are tied up guarding private individuals. Some are even posted to empty mansions owned by V.I.P.s who spend most of the year abroad!
With such a massive diversion of manpower, a critical question emerges – How many police officers are truly left to safeguard the more than 200 million ordinary Nigerians?
The situation becomes even more troubling when viewed against Nigeria’s overall police manpower. The United Nations recommends roughly one police officer for every 450 people. By contrast, Nigeria’s current police force amounts to just one officer for every 637 people. This shortfall is more than a statistic. It is a nationwide crisis. Many rural communities have no police presence at all, leaving millions of Nigerians effectively unprotected. It is now crystal clear that public security is being compromised to maintain protection for the elites.
Within the police force, the culture of V.I.P. protection has created perverse incentives. Many officers actively lobby, push, and even fight one another, for V.I.P. postings because of the perks – financial gifts, foreign trips, generous allowances, and benefits far beyond regular policing pay. This has undermined professionalism, drained manpower from frontline duties, and eroded public trust. That the police should serve and protect people, not act as a prestige accessory for the privileged is only now beginning to dawn on the Government. President Tinubu now says that he has directed the withdrawal of police personnel from providing security to V.I.P.s.
This is what he tells the Nigerian people: “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 admits that the scale of recent attacks demanded urgent, coordinated action.
Currently, Nigeria faces persistent violence from Islamist insurgents, armed bandits, and communal clashes that have killed thousands and displaced millions in recent years and it bothers retired Army officer Mike Kebonkwu. “I will agree that the military is over-stretched, that is true, and (but) not to the extent that it is a reason for the inability to deal with the insecurity, especially the fight against insurgency,” he says.
The 21st November kidnappings are only the latest in a long list of similar crimes that have been reported in Nigeria. It is the 13th such incident in the past 11 years. It brings back memories of the 2014 Chibok schoolgirls’ kidnapping, when Islamist terrorists belonging to the Boko Haram outfit abducted 276 schoolgirls from Borno State. Nearly 12 years later, dozens of them are still missing. For many Nigerians, kidnappings have become all too familiar.
In another recent incident, in Kebbi State’s Maga town, 25 girls were abducted on 17th November from the Government Girls Comprehensive Secondary School but miraculously all of them have since been rescued. In March 2024, more than 280 schoolchildren were abducted from the town of Kuriga. Schools are particularly soft targets. Since 2014, more than a thousand 4 hundred students have been kidnapped. The statistics are staggering and alarming at once.
Amnesty International warns that Nigeria’s persistent failure to stop school kidnappings is putting a generation of children’s education at risk. Following the recent mass abductions, more than 20,000 schools across seven states have been closed indefinitely.
On 29th May 2023, during his inaugural speech, President Tinubu declared that his Government will defend the nation from terror and all forms of criminality. This is what he had said at the time: “Security shall be top priority of our administration because neither prosperity nor justice can prevail amidst insecurity and violence. To effectively tackle this, we shall reform both our security doctrine and its Architecture. We shall invest more in our security personnel, and it means more than an increase in number. We shall provide better training, equipment, pay and firepower.”
However, despite his pledge, Nigerians continue to suffer the consequences of persistent insecurity, including kidnappings, killings, and destruction of property.
Incidentally, the mass abductions take place at a time when U.S. President Donald Trump is warning of military action against Nigeria for alleged persecution of Christians. Nigeria dismisses U.S. claims but there’s no denying that it faces multiple overlapping security crises across its central and northern regions.
Terrorists continue to lay siege to communities, carrying out mass abductions and kidnappings-for-ransom with impunity. Across Nigeria, parents are living through every family’s worst nightmare. With armed groups carrying out repeated school abductions, they wait helplessly for the return of their missing children – with no clear answers, no timelines and no assurances of their safety.
For now, hope is all these parents have.
Hope that their children will return safely.
Hope that their pleas will somehow force the Government to tackle this national tragedy head-on.