By Festus Adedayo

A few weeks before his assassination on February 13, 1976, one Obarogie Ohanbamu, who was a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Law at the University of Lagos and who also doubled at that time as Editor-in-Chief and publisher of African Spark, a monthly news magazine, published a damning story against the Head of State, General Murtala Mohammed.

A damaging rumour about the integrity of the Head of State was then in circulation. The publication and the rumour said Murtala possessed a row of houses in Kano which he could not have legitimately owned. Ohanbamu’s magazine also editorialized this information, asking how the Commander-in-Chief, as a public servant, could have mobilized such huge capital for the acquisition.

Upon the publication, Ohanbamu was promptly arrested and detained incommunicado. However, a few days after Murtala was assassinated by Buka Suka Dimka, the Attorney-General of the Federation produced Ohanbamu in an open Lagos court. He was accused of slandering the late Head of State. Curiously, the AGF asked the court to caution and discharge the accused, submitting that Ohanbamu had since acknowledged his accusation as an error.

The error, said the Attorney-General, was that Ohanbamu did not know Murtala had declared his assets to him (the AG) on his accession to office. Subsequently, said the AGF, Murtala also deposed in an affidavit that he had given back all the said Kano properties to the state. However, questions trailed the AGF’s submission. No one corroborated his claim, nor did anybody claim to have seen the document with which this deed of transfer was consummated. Even if they did, the fact of the properties’ initial acquisition by Murtala had not been trumped, thus validating Ohanbamu’s original claim. If you look at this story with a thorough eye, substitute Adeniyi for Ohanbamu and Murtala for the Villa and you might not be far from being correct.

That story looks so much like the Gbajabiamila/Adeniyi scandal.

With the huge achievement of the Bola Tinubu government in getting the Oriire victims freed, will the scandal of the disowned Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council cum Presidential Economic Advisory Council now go away?

If you ask me, the greatest beneficiary of the exhilarating news of the release of the abducted pupils and teachers of Oriire in Oyo State is the president’s Chief of Staff, Femi Gbajabiamila. Or, and the Nigerian presidency. In my piece of last week, I wagered a guess that the presidency would soon reach for its scabbard and bring out a dagger to perforate and deconstruct the embarrassing scandal. An alleged impostor penetrating the walls of the Nigerian presidency, revealing the rump of corruption on the presidency’s back, is an issue to ponder on. Aso Rock Villa promptly looked westward. The abducted pupils and teachers of Oriire council of Oyo State might be the answer. In communication studies strategy, it is taught that when a problematic issue like the Gbajabiamila crisis rears its ugly head, strategists should canvass doing one of three things. Or even all three. The reeking fart can be dissolved, deconstructed, or re-contextualized.

The truth is, from colonial times, it is a notorious fact that corruption had acquired a recurring character. It is a variant of a social virus.

The Gbajabiamila/Adeniyi issue reminds me of Swahili, the Bantu language of East and Central Africa. It is a major lingua franca across nations like Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Like all languages in Africa, Swahili explains the world in very vivid imagery. Spoken by over 200 million people, it has a saying that seems to explain the roiling Femi Gbajabiamila/Adeniyi-gate.

On the day a monkey is destined to die, a classical, powerful Swahili saying goes, all trees become slippery. The dramatis personae in Nigeria’s most horrifying drama involving the president’s Chief of Staff are obviously banking on Nigerians’ infamous short memory and short-span emotions — assuming that Nigerians would yell, yell, and eventually keep quiet. To their chagrin, however, cells of the scandal, like cancer cells, seem to be multiplying. Spins upon spins have failed to explain away the lies. Even the man behind the look-alike House of Horror scandal, speaking on a Very Dark Man podcast last week, said the whole episode sounded confusing to him, too.

A replica of the Gbajabiamila/Adeniyi-gate also happened under the Yakubu Gowon government. It was found in the sensational public charges of corruption that were made in sworn affidavits against a Federal Commissioner for Communication, J. S. Tarka, by Godwin Daboh. A school teacher, Aper Aku, similarly made an allegation against Joseph Gomwalk, Gowon’s Benue-Plateau State Military Governor.

On this matter of a phony federal agency, President Tinubu has acted fittingly like an Ìjàkùmò. In Yoruba zoology, Ìjàkùmò is a fierce, elusive, and wild nocturnal animal. While many say the Ìjàkùmò is a civet, some others call it the wolverine, or a type of phantom wild cat. The commune that gave Ìjàkùmò the taxonomy of a wolverine may, however, not be correct because its nativity isn’t Africa. Wolverines hail from remote, cold climates and high alpine environments across the Northern Hemisphere in North America, Europe, and Asia. The Ìjàkùmò is, however, notorious as an animal that is forever restlessly on the move. It never settles in a particular place for long, nor is it ever seen in the daytime. It is also a very smart animal, though never clever.

As spinners in Nigerian federal clothing attempt to dig holes wherein they could hide, the land gives their naked frame up. Their spins mirror the classical Fela Anikulapo-Kuti bedlam: “You be thief, I no be thief; you be armed robber, I no be armed robber; argument, arguments argue…” To some of the spinners, the “ghost agency,” the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC), is a completely fictitious body whose self-named DG is a conman, simpliciter. To some others, PFIPC is a doppelgänger — a clone out of ancient German mythology which believes that every living creature has an invisible, identical spirit double. So, PFIPC is a double of an original. But the notorious questions have not been answered: how did a conman infiltrate the presidency, Nigeria’s civil service, and the legislature, succeeding in running a sophisticated fraud operation for over a year without an insider?

Last week, spirited attempts were made to exonerate Gbajabiamila. Pages of advertorials placed in a newspaper heralded the scare, which to some shallow minds, approximated exoneration. A 2023 video of the president exonerating his family pitcher-breaker (afo’keemu) — the recidivist, who the Yoruba say is always a subject of village discourse — resurfaced with the aim of misleading the people.

Then, the Ìjàkùmò himself dug in. No, he didn’t dig in like in the case of Betta Edu, Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation in the Tinubu cabinet. Immediately accusations against this minister surfaced, Tinubu showed her the door. She’s not been back ever since. But, not to worry, the Yoruba say it is someone else’s child you send on a nocturnal assignment — Iwofa ns’ojojo, won ni alakori gbe ise re de, o nse omo olowo, won ni ko r’oju fi ata s’enu (the pawn develops catarrh; they sneer, “the fool has come with his usual trouble.” But when the rich man’s child falls ill, everyone prescribes pepper soup and showers him with concern).

To be sure of the claim that Adeniyi Adeyemi was indeed a doppelgänger and had nothing to do with Tinubu’s Chief of Staff, the whole world suggested that an independent investigative panel consisting of trustworthy Nigerians should investigate the maggots’ paradise scandal. Rather than this, from his pouch of smartness, the Ìjàkùmò ordered the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) to wade in. And the furtive guile of this animal came out for all to see. This animal, the Yoruba claim, in its spin pseudo-wisdom, reverses the norm. While every animal cleans their bum-bum after excreting, Ìjàkùmò cleans its bum-bum before it excretes. In a mockery of the Ìjàkùmò’s smartness, which the animal believed was cleverness, the Yoruba mock anyone who swims in reverse wisdom like Ìjàkùmò.

Ancient wisdom tells us that even if we do not know anything else, we cannot be as daft as not to know that three persons cannot stand in twos. On the matter of the former governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, and the ICPC — dragged to court by the latter on charges of alleged conversion and possession of proceeds of corruption, as well as money laundering — the commission hasn’t acted like the impartial arbiter that it should be.

The belief out there is that the trio of the Villa, the judiciary, and the ICPC have collaborated to lock up the Villa’s nemesis, El-Rufai, in detention until after next year’s presidential election. Mrs. El-Rufai said as much in her viral plea last week. Begging the president not to just free her husband, but to uphold the principles of fairness that go with judicial trial, Mrs. El-Rufai was forced to dig up the emotive contributions of her family to the presidential victory the “Lagos Boy” currently savours. If you drill deep down into why El-Rufai must be continuously kept in detention, you may encounter the metaphysics of marabout prophecy in it. It is said that marabouts have predicted that El-Rufai will someday become Nigeria’s president, and the Lagos Boy is scared silly of this star from the north upstaging him from his birthright. So, how does the Ìjàkùmò expect the world to believe that, in this matter of perceived collaboration between a Villa boy and a scammer to scam the Nigerian establishment, deploying the ICPC as an arbiter would bring about justice?

Moreover, this selfsame presidency, a few days after the scandal broke, had cleared Gbajabiamila of complicity in the said crime. Calling Adeyemi a “con artist”, Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, accused him of peddling falsehood. He also stated that he had earlier been investigated by security agencies and the court awaited the commencement of his trial. In the release, the presidency established Gbajabiamila’s innocence while accusing Adeyemi of an attempt to drag “the Presidency to disrepute before the public and international community”. Indeed, said the presidency, the police had, on November 27, 2025, filed an eight-count charge against Adeyemi and two of his accomplices at the Federal High Court in Abuja, and they were due to appear in court on July 27. So, how do you first convict a man and then ask him to be probed? This Ijakumo sure cleans its bum-bum before excreting!

On Tinubu mandating the ICPC to look into the scandal, I recall that the Murtala-Obasanjo government did the same. It appointed a judicial commission of enquiry to investigate the circumstances that caused the infamy of the Cement Armada under General Gowon. Nigeria had lost millions of Naira to a cement ships armada which choked off the free passage of vessels at the Apapa port, costing the government huge losses and strangulating her external trade via massive demurrage fees. The panel was headed by Justice Belgore.

After the report of the commission was made available to the duo of Murtala and Obasanjo, the public never saw its content. The government merely issued a white paper which cleared Obasanjo of any complicity in the allegations. Obasanjo was then the Director of the Army Engineering Corps and later the Federal Commissioner for Works throughout the period of the cement scandal. He supervised a country-wide military barracks building project that Gowon was in a near obsession with.

All the above no longer matter anyway. All is now quiet on the home front. No thanks to the Oriire abductees’ freedom. Praise the Lord, somebody!

BY LANRE OLAGUNJU

One of the earliest signals that Inspector-General of Police, Olatunji Disu, intended to approach policing reform differently came barely days after assuming office. Rather than waiting for the constitutional debate to mature, he inaugurated an eight-member committee headed by Professor Olu Ogunsakin to develop a practical framework for state policing. It was a proactive decision that acknowledged a simple reality: if Nigeria was eventually going to embrace state police, the conversation should be informed by research rather than rhetoric. The committee’s recommendations were subsequently presented to the National Assembly as part of the ongoing constitutional reform process, reinforcing the Police Force’s willingness to contribute constructively to one of Nigeria’s most significant security conversations.

That spirit deserves recognition.

The proposed constitutional amendments now represent perhaps the boldest policing reform since 1999. For the first time, Nigeria appears ready to move away from a fully centralised policing model towards one that shares responsibility between the Federal Police and State Police.

Yet constitutional moments are often defined not only by what they answer, but by the questions they leave behind.

The current draft addresses many longstanding concerns. It establishes separate chains of command, outlines conditions for federal intervention and creates safeguards against arbitrary interference. But before the ink dries, there are a few questions that deserve clearer answers—not because the proposal should be abandoned, but because reforms of this magnitude should leave as little room for uncertainty as possible.

The first question is perhaps the most practical: who ultimately pays when security becomes expensive?

The proposed amendment rightly places primary responsibility for funding State Police on the states while allowing the Federal Government to provide grants through the National Police Council with legislative approval. But the framework stops short of explaining how those grants will be determined or distributed. States with stronger economies may establish capable police services relatively quickly. Others facing the greatest security pressures may struggle to fund even basic operations. If policing quality begins to depend largely on a state’s fiscal capacity, could Nigeria unintentionally create unequal levels of public safety across the federation? That question may ultimately require answers in the accompanying Police Act rather than the Constitution itself.

A second question concerns the delicate boundary between federal authority and state autonomy.

The draft wisely limits federal intervention to exceptional situations, including a breakdown of law and order or when requested by a governor. Yet determining precisely when a “breakdown” has occurred could become one of the most contested constitutional questions in future. Security emergencies rarely announce themselves neatly. At what point does a deteriorating situation become severe enough to justify federal intervention? Greater clarity may help prevent future disagreements that distract from the very objective both police structures are designed to achieve.

The third question is about accountability.


A third question concerns implementation itself. The Constitution establishes the framework, but many of the most important details—including certification standards, funding formulas, operational protocols and inter-agency coordination—are deferred to a future Police Act. That sequencing creates an obvious question. What happens if constitutional approval arrives before the enabling legislation is fully in place? States eager to establish police services could find themselves constitutionally empowered but operationally constrained, while the Federal Police continues to shoulder responsibilities under a system already acknowledged as overstretched. The transition may therefore depend less on constitutional amendment than on how quickly the implementing law follows.

Finally, there is the question that perhaps matters most over time: coordination.

Crime rarely respects administrative boundaries. Kidnapping networks, organised criminal groups, cybercrime syndicates and arms traffickers routinely operate across multiple states. The proposed framework recognises this reality by preserving a Federal Police with nationwide responsibilities. Even so, operational cooperation between both services will require far more than constitutional language. Intelligence sharing, interoperable communication systems, common databases and joint operational protocols will become just as important as jurisdiction itself. Without seamless coordination, decentralisation could unintentionally create operational gaps that sophisticated criminal networks may seek to exploit.

None of these questions diminishes the importance of the reform.


Indeed, they reinforce why this constitutional exercise matters. The objective is not simply to establish another police institution. It is to build a policing architecture capable of responding to Nigeria’s evolving security landscape more effectively than the one it replaces.

The debate has matured considerably. Credit belongs to the National Assembly for advancing the constitutional amendments and to stakeholders—including the Nigeria Police Force under IGP Disu—for engaging the process early with research-based recommendations rather than institutional resistance.

History may well remember this as the moment Nigeria embraced a more federal approach to policing.

But history also teaches that the strength of institutions often lies in the details that seem technical today and become decisive tomorrow.

Before Nigeria redraws the map of policing, it would be wise to ensure that every important question has an equally convincing answer. Because when it comes to national security, clarity is not merely good governance—it is itself a form of protection.

Olagunju wrote in from Abuja

BY LANRE OLAGUNJU

Leadership is often most visible from a distance. It is associated with command centres, operational briefings and intelligence reports. But every so often, leadership leaves the office and walks into the field.

When the commissioner of police for the Federal Capital Territory, CP Ahmed Muhammed Sanusi, joined a joint security operation into the Paze-Byazhin forests on the outskirts of Abuja to dismantle kidnappers’ hideouts, he did more than supervise another police operation. He demonstrated a style of leadership that placed the commander alongside those expected to carry out the assignment.

The operation dismantled kidnappers’ camps, led to arrests, rescued victims and disrupted criminal enclaves. Yet its greatest significance lay beyond the arrests. It demonstrated that visible leadership can be a force multiplier, inspiring confidence and reinforcing the idea that policing is a shared mission rather than a delegated responsibility.

Success has a way of travelling within institutions. It shapes expectations, influences behaviour and encourages others to believe that what once appeared exceptional can become the new standard.

Great football managers rarely win because they possess the best players. They win because they build cultures where healthy competition, collaboration and shared purpose become habits.

There are growing signs that something similar is quietly unfolding within the Nigeria Police Force.

For decades, criminals have understood something the police often struggled to operationalise. Crime does not recognise state boundaries. Kidnappers flee across jurisdictions. Armed robbers exploit administrative gaps. Criminal gangs establish safe havens wherever they believe pursuit will slow at the edge of a command.

Increasingly, however, the police appear to be responding differently. The shift is not merely operational. It is increasingly cultural.

The recent launch of Operation Kosaye by the Lagos and Ogun State Police Commands is perhaps the clearest indication yet that policing is beginning to outgrow administrative borders. The operation, which has already led to the arrest of dozens of suspects, the rescue of kidnapped victims and the recovery of weapons, was built on a simple but powerful premise: criminals may recognise state boundaries, but they should never be allowed to exploit them.

A similar philosophy is unfolding hundreds of kilometres away.

Along the Rivers-Akwa Ibom boundary, commissioners of police from both states have intensified joint patrols, operational inspections and intelligence sharing. Rather than treating the interstate boundary as the end of one command and the beginning of another, both commands are increasingly treating it as shared operational space.

Viewed separately, these developments may appear routine. Viewed together, they reveal the outlines of a new policing playbook.

Taken together, the Abuja forest operation, Operation Kosaye and the Rivers–Akwa Ibom collaboration point to a policing philosophy built on four interlocking principles: visible leadership, intelligence-led operations, collaboration across jurisdictions and healthy competition among commands. Individually, none of these ideas is revolutionary. Collectively, however, they represent a significant shift from reactive policing towards a more integrated operational culture.

That broader philosophy is increasingly becoming visible under inspector-general of police Olatunji Disu. Commissioners are no longer judged merely by the peace within their own jurisdictions, but by their ability to work across jurisdictions. Every successful operation now raises the benchmark for the next command.

Collaboration is becoming an operational expectation. Yet leadership is measured by more than operational outcomes.

Recent reports from Rivers State generated public debate after allegations emerged that some officers were subjected to undignified treatment during an inspection over standards of appearance, despite claims by some of the affected personnel that underlying medical conditions contributed to their appearance. While discipline remains central to professional policing, the episode illustrates an equally important principle: professionalism must always be accompanied by dignity.

Demanding excellence from officers and respecting their humanity are not competing objectives. They reinforce one another.

The Nigeria Police Force is asking more of its officers than at any other period in recent history. They are expected to pursue kidnappers through forests, confront terrorists employing increasingly sophisticated tactics and disrupt criminal syndicates that move seamlessly across state boundaries. In such an environment, operational discipline is indispensable. But leadership that inspires confidence rather than fear is equally essential.

That balance may well define the next phase of police reform.

The next logical step is already becoming apparent.

If commissioners of police can collaborate across state boundaries, why should that philosophy stop there?

Nigeria’s divisional police officers and Area Commanders should become the next frontier of collaborative policing. Criminal gangs rarely operate within a single police division. Intelligence gathered in one division may prevent a kidnapping in another. A robbery pattern identified in one area command may expose a criminal network operating across several local government areas.

Imagine neighbouring divisional police officers (DPO) meeting routinely to compare intelligence instead of waiting for formal directives. Imagine Area Commanders sharing operational resources before criminals exploit jurisdictional gaps. Imagine divisions competing, not over statistics, but over response times, crime prevention, community engagement and public confidence.

Collaboration should become part of performance, not merely personality. A command should not depend on whether two neighbouring officers happen to have a good relationship. It should become standard operating culture.

That would represent more than administrative reform. It would signal a cultural transformation.

Of course, collaboration alone will not solve Nigeria’s security challenges. The Force still requires better welfare, modern training, improved equipment and greater technological capability. Those fundamentals remain indispensable.

The early signs suggest that the Nigeria Police Force is beginning to embrace a culture in which commissioners no longer see one another as isolated commanders but as teammates pursuing a common objective.

Great football teams do not win because every player is brilliant. They win because ordinary players learn to operate as an extraordinary unit.

Perhaps policing works the same way.

Every successful joint operation strengthens confidence. Every shared intelligence breakthrough encourages deeper cooperation. Every criminal denied the opportunity to exploit a state boundary reinforces the idea that policing is strongest when it operates as one team.

If that culture continues to spread—from commissioners to area commanders, from Area Commanders to Divisional Police Officers, and from divisions to communities—it may prove to be one of the most consequential institutional changes the Nigeria Police Force has witnessed in recent years.

Criminals learnt long ago that cooperation multiplies their strength. The Nigeria Police Force appears to be embracing the same principle for a higher purpose.

If collaboration becomes a habit rather than a headline, future historians may remember this period not simply for successful operations or impressive arrests, but for changing the culture of policing itself.

Because the strongest police force is not necessarily the one with the largest numbers.

It is the one that learns to think—and fight—as one.

Olagunju wrote in from Abuja