ABUJA, Nigeria — Abdul Ningi, the senator representing Bauchi Central, has protested the withdrawal of his police orderly, saying the enforcement of President Bola Tinubu’s directive removing police escorts from VIPs has been selective and unfairly targeted at members of the national assembly.
Speaking during plenary on Wednesday, December 10, 2025, Ningi said he was alarmed to learn that his only police orderly had been withdrawn while ministers, business figures, and even entertainers continued to retain multiple security personnel despite the presidential order.
President Tinubu had on November 23 directed the immediate withdrawal of police officers attached to VIPs across the country as part of a wider effort to redeploy personnel to core policing duties and strengthen internal security.
Ningi told his colleagues that the directive appeared to be inconsistently applied and called for accountability from the Nigeria Police Force.
“Let’s see what happens from the office of the president, to the vice president, to the senate president, to the speaker of the house, to the ministers,” he said.
“I saw two ministers and they were carrying lots of security personnel. I have also seen business people, Chinese and other business concerns, yesterday, with their compliments of orderlies. I have also seen daughters and sons of political office holders having orderlies and having security covers. I have seen singers having orderlies and complimentary of protection.”
He said he found it inconceivable that senators were being stripped of their basic security while other public figures continued to enjoy full police protection.
“I cannot ever imagine that a senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, who has been here for a very long time, only one orderly, and he’s withdrawn, and nothing will happen,” he said.
The senator invoked the Legislative Houses (Powers and Privileges) Act 2008 and other statutory precedents, arguing that if police protection must be withdrawn, it should be done uniformly across government offices and among the political elite.
He urged Senate President Godswill Akpabio to direct the chairman of the police affairs committee to investigate the matter.
“You cannot just put national assembly as a scapegoat and others enjoy the privileges of security control,” he said.
Responding, Barau Jibrin, the deputy senate president and presiding officer, said the leadership of the senate had already discussed the issue on Tuesday and initiated steps to address it.
“We expect the outcome of that action to be available to us today in respect of the police orderlies that were withdrawn from the senate,” Barau said.
“It is of concern to us. We are dealing with that in the formal line. The chairman of the police affairs committee should take up this matter, conduct a proper investigation, and let us know why is the directive of Mr. President being flouted.”
Barau added that Tinubu’s directive was issued “in good faith” to boost internal security by redeploying officers to operational duties, but that the selective implementation was unacceptable.
“The directive of Mr. President has been flouted,” he said.
“The leadership agreed that the course of action should be undertaken in order to restore your police orderly to you. I’m sure we have a listening president. We all stand by Mr. President in his effort to deal with the security problem in our country. The matter has been addressed.”
