LAGOS, Nov 24, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - Nigeria's President Bola Tinubu on Sunday reassigned VIPs' police bodyguards to core policing duties and ordered tens of thousands of new officers to be recruited due to a security crisis, his office said.

The president was under pressure after nearly 400 people, over 300 of them school children, were kidnapped in one of the country's biggest-ever waves of abductions in recent days.

Tinubu's government has been under close scrutiny since US President Donald Trump this month threatened military action over what he said was the killing of Christians by radical Islamists in Nigeria.

Tinubu "has ordered the withdrawal of police officers currently providing security for Very Important Persons," said a statement from his office, adding that "many parts of Nigeria" are not adequately policed.

It said Tinubu also approved the recruitment of 30,000 additional police officers.

"In view of the current security challenges facing the country, President Tinubu is desirous of boosting police presence in all communities."

A report published last month by the European Union Agency for Asylum (EUAA) said more than 100,000 of the estimated 371,000-strong force, were "assigned to the protection of politicians and VIPs, rather than to tasks serving the general population".

"This shortage in manpower, as well as corruption and insufficient resources have resulted in delayed responses to crimes and numerous communities being left without protection," said the report.