A new research says that the Nigeria Police Force has more than 100,000 personnel protecting politicians and other Very Important Persons. This has raised concerns about the lack of protection for regular people.
The European Union Agency for Asylum produced a study this month, November 2025, that said the Nigeria Police Force has roughly 371,800 personnel serving a population of about 236.7 million people.
The PUNCH states that the country’s policing problems are made worse by the fact that a large number of police officers are being sent to protect VIPs instead of doing community policing and crime prevention.
The study noted that both new and old sources said that the NPF had about 371,800 members and that the overall population in 2024 will be about 236,747,130 people.
“More than 100,000 police officers were assigned to protect politicians and VIPs instead of doing things that would help the general public, which made the shortage of police even worse.”
The EU agency added that delayed emergency response times and a lack of police presence in many towns are due to a lack of manpower, corruption, and insufficient funding.
The report said, “This lack of staff, along with corruption and a lack of resources, has led to slower responses to crimes and many communities being left unprotected.”
It also said that poor accountability systems have allowed certain cops to act unprofessionally, such as making random arrests, extorting money, and using too much force.
It went on to say, “Without reliable accountability mechanisms, there were reports of police officers engaging in misconduct, including arbitrary arrests, extortion of money, and excessive use of violence.”
We tried to get in touch with Benjamin Hundeyin, the Force Public Relations Officer, for comment, but he didn’t answer our calls or texts at the time of writing this article.
Sending police officers to private citizens and politicians has been a long-standing issue.
Kayode Egbetokun, the Inspector-General of Police, ordered the Police Mobile Force to stop doing VIP tasks in June 2023, not long after he took office. He said that the tactical unit would only be used for important national missions.
In April 2025, he gave a similar order for all mobile police officers who were protecting VIPs to leave the country.
Even if these orders were given, the report says that a large number of police officers are still being utilized to protect VIPs.
Hadiza Bala-Usman, President Bola Tinubu’s Special Adviser on Policy and Coordination and Head of the Central Delivery Coordination Unit, said in August that police should no longer be used as personal guards for VIPs.
Bala-Usman said that protecting the elite shouldn’t come at the cost of national security anymore.
She remarked, “One of the most upsetting things for me is when VIPs show up somewhere with so many cops following them, but the places that really need security are left alone.” “We can’t keep sending cops trained to fight terrorism to Ikoyi only to protect people. That’s not right at all.
“We need to let our police officers do their jobs when it comes to national security.” “Anyone who thinks they are too important and wants armed guards to protect them should hire a private security company with the right paperwork, not our mobile police,” she said.
She asked for a review of the Police Act so that private security might handle “some of the work we are forcing our security agencies to do.”
“We need to let our security agencies do what they need to do. So that Act needs to be modified. Because VIP protection involves a lot of different types of security that our security staff shouldn’t have to undertake, I’ve added it to the list of things we need to keep an eye on. “We have to let them go so they can do what they need to do for national security,” she said.
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