The Crisis of Police Allocation in Nigeria
A recent report has highlighted a critical issue within the Nigeria Police Force (NPF), revealing that over 100,000 officers are currently assigned to protect politicians and other high-profile individuals. This allocation has raised serious concerns about the lack of adequate security for ordinary citizens. The report, published in November 2025 by the European Union Agency for Asylum, provides an in-depth analysis of the challenges facing Nigeria’s law enforcement.
According to the findings, the NPF has an estimated strength of 371,800 officers serving a population of approximately 236.7 million people. Despite this significant number, the police force is struggling to meet the needs of the general public due to the diversion of resources towards VIP protection. The report emphasizes that this misallocation of personnel is exacerbating existing policing deficits.
The report states, “Both recent sources and sources dating back as far as 2007 claimed that the NPF had an estimated strength of 371,800, serving a total population estimated in 2024 at 236,747,130. The resulting shortage in police personnel was compounded by the fact that more than 100,000 police officers were assigned to the protection of politicians and VIPs, rather than to tasks serving the general population.”
This imbalance in police deployment has led to several issues, including slow emergency response times and a lack of police presence in many communities. The EU agency noted that manpower shortages, corruption, and limited resources have further worsened the situation. These factors contribute to delayed responses to crimes and leave numerous areas without any form of police protection.
Additionally, the report highlights the problem of weak accountability mechanisms within the NPF. This has allowed some officers to engage in unprofessional conduct, such as arbitrary arrests, extortion, and excessive use of force. The lack of oversight has created an environment where misconduct can go unchecked, undermining public trust in the police force.
Efforts to obtain comments from the Force Public Relations Officer, Benjamin Hundeyin, were unsuccessful. Calls and messages sent to him remained unanswered at the time of the report’s publication.
Longstanding Concerns and Calls for Change
The deployment of police officers to private individuals and political office holders has been a long-standing concern in Nigeria. In June 2023, shortly after assuming office, the Inspector-General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, issued an order to withdraw Police Mobile Force operatives from VIP duties. He stated that the tactical unit would be reserved strictly for strategic national operations.
This directive was reinforced in April 2025, when the Inspector-General ordered a nationwide withdrawal of mobile police officers attached to VIPs. However, despite these efforts, the report indicates that a significant portion of police manpower continues to be used for VIP protection.
In August, President Bola Tinubu’s Special Adviser on Policy and Coordination and Head of the Central Delivery Coordination Unit, Hadiza Bala-Usman, called for an end to the deployment of policemen as personal guards to VIPs. She argued that elite protection should no longer come at the expense of national security.
Bala-Usman expressed her frustration with the current system, stating, “One of the most disturbing things for me is when VIPs arrive somewhere with so many policemen trailing them, while the areas that actually need security are left unattended. We cannot continue to deploy police trained for anti-terrorism operations just to guard individuals in Ikoyi. That is completely wrong.”
She emphasized the need to free police officers to focus on national security. “Whoever feels too important and wants machine gun-wielding personnel protecting him should go and hire a private security company with the necessary documentation, not take our mobile policemen,” she added.
Bala-Usman also called for a review of the Police Act to enable private security to take up “some of the work we are forcing our security agencies to do.” She stressed the importance of amending the law to allow security agencies to focus on their core responsibilities.
“We must free our security agencies to do what they need to do. So that Act needs to be amended. I’ve put it among the deliverables that we need to track, because VIP protection, there’s a wide gamut of security deployment that really should not be done by our security personnel. We must free them for them to do national security as required,” she declared.