“It takes a special kind of person to serve in law enforcement. Most people run from danger. Law enforcement officers run toward it.” — George H.W. Bush
The romance of the uniform is easy, but the reality is not. Policing is not rhetoric but risk, hierarchy, intelligence coordination, and command discipline. At some levels, it also becomes unavoidably political. That dual character explains why the appointment of an Inspector-General of Police must be guided by operational depth rather than ethnic arithmetic. In moments of transition within the Nigeria Police Force, public debate often descends into regional balancing and sentimental loyalty. The argument shifts from competence to geography, from institutional need to communal expectation. That reflex, however understandable in a diverse federation, is corrosive to professional command structure.
The Inspector-General of Police is appointed by the President on the advice of the Nigeria Police Council. It is a discretionary constitutional power which is neither a conveyor belt of automatic seniority nor a mechanism for ethnic rotation. It is a choice that is purely shaped by executive judgment. Given that we live in a country that is grappling with kidnapping networks, armed banditry, urban robbery, political violence, and intense public mistrust of law enforcement, the President’s choice had to rest on demonstrable operational credibility. Sentiment cannot substitute for capacity in this sense.
The recent appointment of AIG Tunji Disu as the Inspector-General of the Nigeria Police has generated public preference in some quarters for DIG Frank Mba. Mba is undeniably a refined and articulate officer whose tenure as Lagos Police Public Relations Officer and later as Force Public Relations Officer demonstrated communication competence. He managed crisis narratives with composure and articulated institutional positions clearly at moments of public scrutiny. That we currently live in a media-saturated age even makes that capacity matter. But communication is only one dimension of policing. Operational command, intelligence coordination, and tactical leadership form another, arguably weightier, dimension.
Promotion within the Nigeria Police Force, particularly beyond the Commissioner of Police rank, increasingly intersects with politics. This phenomenon is not peculiar to policing. It is equally evident in academia, where attaining professorship is largely scholarly, whereas becoming Vice-Chancellor often involves political negotiation. In journalism, reporters recruited on the same day rarely ascend to editor simultaneously. Hierarchies filter upward through discretion. Within the force, that filtering becomes sharper after the commissioner level, when executive confidence and strategic trust become decisive factors. Senior appointments at that altitude are rarely mechanical.
For context, Frank Mba and Tunji Disu both belonged to Course 17/1992. Mba entered as a cadet inspector, while Disu entered as a cadet assistant superintendent of police, making Disu senior in entry rank. Over time, Mba rose rapidly, benefiting from special promotions facilitated under the Federal Character framework. His progression across ranks, from SP to CSP, CSP to ACP, DCP to CP, AIG to DIG, occurred through discretionary advancement. This is not a moral indictment, but an explanation of how institutional systems operate. Similarly, Olorundare Moshood Jimoh once ranked above Mba (and yielded the FPPRO position to Mba as a DCP while Mba was ACP) and today serves as Commissioner of Police in Lagos State, while Mba occupies the rank of Deputy Inspector-General. These shifts show that seniority at high levels is neither linear nor immune from executive calculus.
Incontrovertibly, behind every sterile gazette of promotion lies a volatile psychological terrain. Rank is more than an insignia stitched to fabric; it is a core identity. When former peers become subordinates, institutional memory must rearrange itself. Seniority can begin to feel like an inheritance, just as rapid ascent invites quiet scrutiny. In such environments, command stability rests not merely on title, but on perceived legitimacy. At this juncture, operational pedigree becomes the major stabilising asset, as it commands organic respect within tactical units.
It is within this framework that the professional trajectory of Tunji Disu must be evaluated. His career has been defined largely by field command and operational leadership rather than media visibility. He led the Rapid Response Squad in Lagos for six years, overseeing one of the most operationally visible urban crime-control units in the country. He later headed the Intelligence Response Team and served as Commissioner of Police in Rivers State and subsequently in the Federal Capital Territory. He held the position of Assistant Inspector-General in charge of the FCID Annex, Alagbon. Earlier in his career, he led the first Nigerian Police contingent to the African Union Mission in Sudan in 2005 during the Darfur crisis, an assignment that required multinational operational coordination rather than ceremonial presence. Those postings involved intelligence fusion, hostage response management, anti-kidnapping operations, and high-risk deployment oversight. Visibility and operational command are distinct competencies, and the latter often determines field confidence.
Nigeria’s internal security challenges are not primarily a public relations deficit but an operational and structural one. The crisis involves response time inefficiencies, investigative weaknesses, forensic limitations, intelligence coordination gaps, welfare concerns, corruption control, and strained citizen trust. An Inspector-General must therefore command the confidence of tactical units, understand the psychology of armed deployment, and handle the delicate relationship between the police, the military, and intelligence services. He must also balance federal authority with growing state-level demands for policing reform. Ethnic sequencing does not resolve these institutional complexities.
Some have argued that because a Yoruba officer is retiring, another Yoruba officer should not immediately succeed him. Such reasoning finds no grounding in constitutional text. The law does not prescribe ethnic rotation for the office of Inspector-General. It prescribes appointments by executive discretion on institutional advice. Historical patterns further support this point. During the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari, several Inspectors-General, including Ibrahim Kpotun Idris, Mohammed Adamu, and Usman Alkali Baba, emerged from the northern region. It was only Solomon Ehigiator Arase, from 2015 to 2016, who was the only southerner in that sequence, and he was already IGP when Buhari assumed office, having been appointed in April 2015 by President Goodluck Jonathan, and continued in office under Buhari until his retirement in 2016. The institutional continuity of the force did not collapse under that pattern. The real question, therefore, is not origin but outcome.
Another institutional issue warrants sober examination, namely, the custom of retirement when a junior officer is elevated above seniors. There is no explicit statute mandating the automatic retirement of officers senior in date of rank to a newly appointed service chief. Under existing service laws, appointments and retirements remain executive decisions. But an established convention has often produced such exits to preserve clarity within the chain of command and avoid rank inversion.
In highly hierarchical institutions, especially disciplined services (such as the police), perceived disruption of seniority can weaken authority and morale. Where former seniors are required to take directives from erstwhile juniors, friction may arise, not necessarily because of personal inadequacy, but because legitimacy in such systems is closely tied to structured rank progression. Whether one considers the convention contestable or prudent, it has historically functioned as a mechanism for stabilising command authority and preventing prolonged internal contestation. That reality exposes how delicate hierarchical legitimacy can be within command-driven institutions.
If operational pedigree is the rationale for the present appointment, then operational reform must be its justification. The Nigeria Police Force requires measurable transformation rather than rhetorical celebration. The new leadership must confront entrenched roadside extortion, strengthen investigative follow-through, improve morale within the rank and file, bridge the gap between intelligence gathering and prosecution, and restore public confidence eroded by years of mistrust. Leadership in policing is not abstract idealism. It is command responsibility expressed through discipline, accountability, and administrative competence.
President Bola Tinubu has exercised a commendable constitutional discretion in this appointment. That discretion carries a burden of performance. Measurable outcomes last long after the transient applause of an inauguration has faded. The success of this decision will not be assessed by regional satisfaction or elite endorsement but by reduced kidnapping corridors, improved prosecutorial success, fewer documented incidents of abuse, and demonstrable improvement in citizen-police relations. Operational depth must translate into operational results.
Above all, the office of Inspector-General is not a ceremonial pinnacle but a touchstone of accountability. The uniform does not sanctify the wearer. It tests him, really hard. If competence rather than arithmetic guided this choice, then competence must govern the tenure. Memory will not record who preferred which candidate. It will record whether the Nigeria Police Force emerged stronger, more disciplined, and more trusted under the weight of this appointment.
We, once more, call upon the IGP to utilise his good offices to tackle the nation’s internal security challenges and dismantle the hatred engendered by years of extortion, bribery, and the systemic manhandling of the people.
During your reign, we genuinely want the mantras “Police is your friend”, and “Bail is Free” to become true. Congratulations, Disu. As you did with RRS, you can do this too!
The conversation does not end here. You can continue it with me on X via @folorunso_adisa, LinkedIn: Folorunso Fatai Adisa, or on Facebook at Folorunso Fatai Adisa.
