Police escorts

• Published date: 09 January 2023
• Publication title: Nigeria - The Nation

It would seem sufficient attention is yet to be given to the predicament of police escort personnel in the face of the escalated insecurity across the country. This is especially so given the recurring attacks on the convoys of prominent personalities across the country and the high number of deaths of security men in such encounters.

The regularity of such attacks and the attendant loss of security aides have taken such a dimension that should task the creative energy of the leadership of this country. Nobody is really insulated from the fatalities of the unceasing insecurity that has reduced life to a verity of the atavism of the state of nature.

But, the increasing plight of police escort personnel in the hands of sundry criminals, can only by ignored by the heartless; those who regard them as expendable objects. Questions are beginning to be raised regarding the value the society places on the lives of these servicemen. Their story has been that of a sad harvest of deaths as one influential personality or the other is waylaid and attacked by rampaging criminals across the country.

And each time such attacks occur, what we hear are stories of the miraculous escape of the targeted VIPs; how they managed to flee into safety and the divine powers or man-made objects that facilitated their escape. But that is just one side of the coin. The other side has been a tale of sorrow and awe characterized by the killing of many if not all of the police escorts and some other civilians in the attacked convoys.

The trend has become so common that our policy makers seem to have taken it for granted. Yes, there has been the absence of strategic thinking as to why police escorts should be dying in their numbers after such attacks. If such situations had been given serious official consideration, measures should have been in place before now to minimize the risks police escorts face each time they are attacked. There is yet no evidence of such measures. Little wonder we have continued to harvest deaths each time convoys of VIPs are attacked.

In October last year, gunmen attacked the convoy of the senior pastor and General Overseer of Omega Ministries International, Apostle Johnson Suleman close to Auchi in Edo State. Apostle Suleman was lucky as he escaped unhurt. But the four policemen in his escort and some other civilians were not that lucky as they were felled by the bullets of the demented criminals.

Apostle Suleman had attributed his survival to divine intervention. It...