Task Before The New IGP

The appointment of Assistant Inspector-General of Police (AIG), Tunji Disu as Acting Inspector-General of Police (IGP) by President Bola Tinubu following the resignation of Kayode Egbetokun comes at a period when the country’s security situation demands urgent, decisive and competent leadership.

Egbetokun, who was appointed in June 2023 and was serving a four-year term scheduled to end in 2027, cited pressing family considerations in his resignation letter. While the president has expressed appreciation for Egbetokun’s service and professionalism, the reality on the ground tells a different story.

The Nigeria that Disu inherits as the 23rd Inspector-General of Police is one where banditry, kidnapping, insurgency and general lawlessness have tightened their grip on communities across every geopolitical zone.

There is no time for ceremony. The new IGP must hit the ground running.

Disu’s appointment follows constitutional procedure.  The President is expected to convene the Nigeria Police Council and subsequently transmit his name to the Senate for confirmation as substantive IGP.

But process, however important, is secondary to performance in the minds of millions of Nigerians who have watched the security situation deteriorate year after year despite repeated promises of improvement from successive administrations.

The country does not need another IGP who will spend months “settling in” while citizens are slaughtered in their homes, abducted on highways and terrorised in their farms.

The security landscape Disu steps into is grim by any honest assessment. Banditry, which was largely confined to the North-West states of Zamfara, Katsina, Sokoto and parts of Niger State, has metastasised. Kwara State, once considered a relatively peaceful buffer between the North and the South, is fast becoming a new epicentre of bandit activity. Reports of attacks, kidnappings and displacement from Kwara and neighbouring states have become disturbingly frequent.

This southward expansion of banditry represents a dangerous escalation that should alarm every security planner in Abuja.

The bandits are not retreating they are spreading. And the response from the security establishment under the outgoing IGP was, to put it charitably, inadequate.

Kidnapping, which has become a full-blown industry in Nigeria, continues to wreak havoc on families, communities and the national psyche. From the forests of the North-Central to the creeks of the South-South, from the highways of the South-West to the rural communities of the South-East, no part of the country is immune.

Nigerians now factor the possibility of abduction into their daily calculations whether to travel by road, whether to send children to school, whether to visit the farm. That a country of over 200 million people has been reduced to this level of existential anxiety is an indictment of the entire security architecture.

President Tinubu himself has acknowledged that Nigerians are in a hurry to see insecurity drastically reduced. He is right. The patience of the citizenry has been stretched to breaking point. Banditry and insurgency are holding the country by the jugular, and no amount of presidential rhetoric will substitute for visible, measurable progress on the ground.

Disu must understand that his appointment is not a reward. It is a mandate. And the Nigerian people will judge him not by his promises at the Presidential Villa but by what happens in the villages, towns and highways where ordinary citizens live and die.

To his credit, Disu struck the right tone in his first public remarks after his decoration by the President. His declaration that “the era of impunity is over” within the police force is welcome, if not overdue.

His commitment to zero tolerance for corruption, strict discipline and respect for human rights addresses one of the most corrosive problems within the Nigeria Police Force and the conduct of its own officers. For too long, Nigerians have had to contend not only with criminals but with the very people paid to protect them.

Police brutality, extortion at checkpoints, extrajudicial killings and the harassment of innocent citizens, particularly young people, have eroded public trust in the force to a dangerous low. The reports of police misconduct, especially by officers deployed on highways and at roadblocks, demand serious investigation and decisive corrective action.

Disu’s recognition that policing cannot succeed without public cooperation is also significant. He is correct that citizens are “the boss” and that no police force anywhere in the world can function without the trust and partnership of the people it serves.

But trust is earned, not declared. It is earned when officers stop treating citizens as suspects and sources of revenue. It is earned when complaints of brutality are investigated rather than buried. It is earned when the police show up to protect communities before tragedy strikes, not after.

The new IGP must translate these fine words into institutional change.

On the operational front, Disu must adopt both kinetic and non-kinetic approaches to the security crisis. Military-style operations against armed groups are necessary, but they are not sufficient. Intelligence-led policing, community engagement, technology deployment and inter-agency coordination are all critical components of any serious security strategy.

The perennial problem of inter-agency rivalry between the police, the military, the DSS and other security outfits must be addressed. Criminals do not recognise jurisdictional boundaries, and neither should those tasked with stopping them.

We note that Disu has four years ahead of him barring any unforeseen circumstances to make a demonstrable difference. He has no excuse.

The security challenges are well-documented, the expectations are clear, and the resources, while not unlimited, are available if properly managed. Nobody expects the security crisis to vanish overnight. But Nigerians expect to see a trajectory of improvement, fewer kidnappings, reduced bandit attacks, safer highways, and a police force that protects rather than preys upon the people.

The new IGP should roll up his sleeves. There is enormous work to be done, and the confidence the President has reposed in him must be justified by results, not rhetoric.