Mobile policemen to be withdrawn from VIPs

The police on Friday said it would withdraw personnel of its mobile formation attached to very important personalities (VIPs) in the country.

Ibrahim Idris, inspector-general of police, announced this at an interactive session with a group of civil society organisations in Abuja.

He said the measure was intended to bring the police closer to Nigerians.

Idris said the force had created additional mobile police squadron in states to enhance police operations, adding that Nigerians would now have more special protection units (SPUs) in the commands in the zones.

“We will withdraw all mobile police back to barracks to concentrate on dealing with serious law and order situation,” he said.

“It means that we are stopping deployment of mobile police from protecting VIPs in the country because that is not where they should serve.

“This is to allow us have enough men on the ground to deal especially with the issues of kidnapping.

“We are creating new SPUs in each command; so, virtually all commands will have them, and with the support of the state governments, most of them would be deployed especially to states.’’

Idris said the decision was basically to stem the cases of incessant kidnapping, adding that it had become a challenge that the force received hundreds of cases daily.

He called for the establishment of special courts to address the cases of kidnapping.