VIP police escort ban is a victory for common sense

Every once in a while, a government takes a step that forces the country to pause and ask why we didn’t do it years ago. The recent decision of the federal government to withdraw police details from VIPs and redeploy them to high-risk areas is precisely that kind of moment. It is a reform that touches the heart of a long-standing imbalance in which the average Nigerian is left defenceless while public resources are diverted to guard individuals who are neither threatened with extraordinary danger nor indispensable to national security.

For years, Nigeria’s policing structure has been quietly skewed in favour of politicians, appointees, celebrities, and wealthy power brokers who turned police protection into a personal entitlement.  We normalised the idea that an elected official, whose duty is to protect the public, should consume public security resources for personal comfort. The result is predictable: a country with over 200 million people but with insufficient police officers in our most insecure communities.

So when the government finally announced that police escorts would be withdrawn from VIPs and reassigned to critical security duties, it was more than an administrative decision. It was a correction of a longstanding structural injustice. And when placed side by side with practices in other countries, especially low- and middle-income democracies with similar security challenges, our old system becomes even harder to justify.

A review of India, South Africa, Kenya, Pakistan, and the Philippines—reveals a pattern that Nigeria has long ignored: parliamentary and institutional security is guaranteed, but personal police bodyguards are not a blanket entitlement for political office holders.

Take India, for example. Lawmakers do not automatically receive personal security escorts. Protection is granted strictly by threat assessment or official position. Only individuals facing verified risks qualify for elite or specialised security categories. The rest of the MPs go about their duties just like ordinary citizens.

In the Philippines, police escorts exist, but they must be formally requested, justified, and approved. It is not an inherited privilege of office. The police even recall escorts during election periods to prevent abuse.

Kenya follows a similar model. Security within the Parliament complex is guaranteed, but personal escorts for MPs are conditional, not automatic. Escorts have been reassigned or withdrawn in the past, showing that they are not permanent entitlements.

South Africa guarantees safety within the parliamentary precincts but reserves personal police protection for only top officials and those under verified threat.

And in Pakistan, assembly security is coordinated through police and the Special Branch, but personal escorts are allocated by need and context, not by status.

Nigeria’s practice, where police protection for VIPs was treated almost as a birthright, now looks even more out of place.

Nigeria’s peculiar system created a troubling incentive: powerful individuals lobbied, pressured, and sometimes outright bought their way into police protection. Officers meant for communities battling banditry, kidnapping, insurgency, and violent crime were converted into private staff—opening car doors, escorting school runs, carrying handbags, and serving in functions that have little to do with policing.

This hollowed out frontline security. Villages in Zamfara, Kaduna, Plateau, Niger, Kogi and Kwara live in daily fear, while officers, who should be patrolling those communities, are following VIPs around Lagos and Abuja.

To put it bluntly: Nigeria’s police became a commodity, not a public service.

So when some politicians quickly and frantically objected to the government’s reform claiming that removing escorts would make VIPs targets, the irony was impossible to miss. If powerful lawmakers truly fear becoming targets, then maybe this sudden vulnerability will inspire them to finally invest fully in solving the insecurity that ordinary Nigerians have faced for over a decade.

If they feel unsafe without special treatment, imagine the daily fear of the farmer in Zamfara and Katsina, the commuter on Abuja–Lokoja expressway, or the young girl walking to school in Papiri or Maga.

Security should never be a luxury reserved for the privileged. It is a fundamental right of every Nigerian.

Part of the argument is simple practicality. In reality, this conversation is bigger than Nigerian politics. Across the world, socialites, celebrities, billionaires, and most politicians do not rely on state police for personal protection. They pay private security companies, which is exactly what private security exists for. Even in countries with far greater wealth and much higher police-to-population ratios, the US, the UK, France, Canada, Germany, Australia—pick a country, the privilege of taxpayer-funded personal protection is reserved for a tiny, clearly defined group: heads of state, governors, key national security officials, Speakers of House and Senate, and individuals under verified threat. People do not get state police escorts because of status. They get them because of necessity. Everyone else secures themselves using private firms if they choose.

Why then should Nigerian celebrities, ex-officials, business magnates, Special Advisers and Assistants to the President or even rank-and-file lawmakers expect the taxpayer to fund their personal security? If the truly powerful in developed democracies can walk freely without a convoy of policemen clearing the road for them, why should Nigeria be different? For once, Nigeria is aligning with a global standard that should have been adopted long ago.

So, there must be a transparent audit of all officers withdrawn from VIP duty, a public registry showing how many have been redeployed to active duty, a clear criteria for who genuinely qualifies for police protection, and strict penalties for anyone—official or civilian—who attempts to bribe, pressure or manipulate the police to regain escorts. If we are serious about this reform, then the era of buying police protection should end.

What the government has done is significant because it is not just a policing reform; it is a cultural reset. It challenges a deeply rooted entitlement mentality and mindset that public office comes with personal privilege and restores the principle that public resources belong to the public not a selected few.

This could also be a turning point. If implemented faithfully, it will no doubt strengthen frontline security in high risks states, restore confidence in law enforcement, and shift the nation towards a more just and rational security architecture. It may also finally compel the political class to confront the insecurity overwhelming the country, making them to finally treat national security as an existential priority, not a talking point. Because for once, they will experience a fraction of what citizens face daily.

This government has taken a bold and necessary step. And it deserves credit. But we must also emphasise a crucial point: this reform must not end as a headline and will only matter if it is implemented rigorously. Nigeria is a country where good policies often die quietly after the headlines fade. Applause is not enough. We must remain vigilant and insist on full implementation

A safer Nigeria begins with putting the police back where they belong with the people who need them most.

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