When Seven Police Officers Guard Man and Cow

The recent directive by the Acting Inspector-General of Police (IG), Olukayode Egbetokun, that the personnel of the Police Mobile Force should be withdrawn from escort and guard duties was made mockery of last week when a video surfaced on social media showing seven policemen guarding a very important personality (VIP).

In the viral video, seven armed policemen were seen guarding a man, who appeared to be on his way to slaughter a cow for the Eid-el-Kabir celebration.

The shameful scene was not the first of its kind as some VIPs were known to have used policemen guarding them to do domestic chores, which are outside their policing duties.

Cases abound where foreign nationals used Nigerian policemen to carry out domestic jobs, which no Nigerian can try in their own countries.

In one shameful case, a Nigerian police officer was seen shielding an Asian with an umbrella while the officer stood under the rain.

In September last year, an Abuja-based professor was accused of instructing her maid and a male staffer to beat up her female police orderly for allegedly refusing to do domestic chores.

The Nigerian police authorities should take steps to ensure that policemen on guard duties conduct themselves in a respectable manner so that they can be treated with dignity.

All the previous IGs had at one time or the other given directives for police personnel to be withdrawn from VIPs. The directives later became empty threats.

Many Nigerians believed that the directives only forced the VIPs to renegotiate better deals for the top officers that approved the posting of policemen to private citizens.

Withdrawing police personnel from the VIPs when kidnappers and bandits are holding the country to ransom would only expose the VIPs to dangers on the highways and their homes.

When the security agencies secure the country, VIPs won’t have the need for special protection, which is always provided at the detriment of the ordinary citizens who are left without police protection.

As promised by the Force PRO, Prince Olumuyiwa Adejobi, the police authorities should rather review its deployment of police operatives to protect private citizens.

Adejobi made the promise while responding to the viral video.